Interpol, Ed Warren Take Coachella Stage with CHAUVET Professional

	"As always with Interpol, I like to create a dark, moody look that is mostly backlit. to provide mood-setting backing and intense strobe effects," says Warren. Photo: Jake West Photo

About 2,700 miles separate the Empire Polo Club from Manhattan's Lower East Side, where the legendary Luna Lounge once stood, from the Mojave Stage at Coachella. But on April 12, the latter venue was transformed into a classic post-punk hotbed when New York's own Interpol kicked off a mercilessly intense performance.

Ed Warren's lighting and production design for the show created an unsettling mood. The designer programmed his show on his ChamSys MagicQ MQ500M Stadium console and had his lighting designer, Christian Lincoln, run the show on the same model console during the festival. To provide extra firepower, he relied on 35 CHAUVET Professional STRIKE 1 fixtures from his touring package.

"We had our STRIKE fixtures in columns of five on seven of the stage's nine upright towers," Warren says. "They were used for backlighting and strobe effects.

"As always with Interpol, I like to create a dark, moody look that is mostly backlit. to provide mood-setting backing and intense strobe effects," he continues. "Throughout this design, I incorporated clean geometric vectors and wide washes of solid block color. I love the use of straight lines with this band -- as I've shown with previous design iterations. This time, I wanted to kind of encase the band in a room of narrow beams, which slowly develop and expand with the music."

Another important function of the STRIKE 1 units was to unleash the bold strobe effects that punctuated the show. When paired with the monochromatic washes and generous level of fog, the strobing projected a restless in-your-face energy level that recalled the group's early Manhattan nightclub days.