18.08.2014 | Elation Flex LED Pixel Tape Highlights Mötley Crüe “Crüecifly” Drum Coaster

Heavy metal icons Mötley Crüe are out on what could be their final tour before retiring and drummer Tommy Lee is going out in style atop a custom-made “Crüecifly” drum coaster, aka the Tommy Coaster, lined with effects from Elation Flex LED Pixel Tape.

Over the years, Tommy Lee has continually come up with creative ways to fly his drum kit with the latest incarnation a type of rollercoaster that has him bolted on and flying and flipping through concert venues. The truss structure required some dressing however and Matt Mills, Lighting Director and Programmer on “The Final Tour,” (lighting designer is Sooner Routhier) turned to the ease of possibilities that Elation’s Flex Pixel Tape offers.

“The main look Tommy wanted was one similar to the runway lights you see at the airport, the strobes that go in sequence to help pilots find the runway,” Matt explains. “The Crüecifly has two runs of truss, each approximately 200' long, that support Tommy’s drum kit as he flies from the stage to a landing platform behind FOH. I had the guys mount, actually tape, the Flex Tape to the top cord of the truss so it would be safe from all the machinery.”

Thin and flexible, Elation Flex Pixel Tape contains RGB LEDs at 40mm centers and can be cut to any length.  Easy to install and setup, it is an easy and cost effective solution for simple color washing, effects and pixel mapping possibilities. Matt uses a total of 400' of Flex Pixel Tape on the "Crüecifly" and has programmed a wide variety of effects besides the airport runway look. “After we achieved that effect, the rest was whatever we felt like throwing at it,” he says. “It really is a nice product.”

Matt controls the Flex Pixel Tape in two ways. “First, I patched it into the lighting console and got everything running from DMX using two NPUs and one NSP. Once that was locked down, I did an Artnet merger and pixelmapped the Flex Tape inside of the media server so we could have the option of either running the Flex Tape from the console, or send video content to it from the media server. This made for some really interesting effects.”

“The Final Tour,” which has Alice Cooper appearing as a special guest, will be playing dates through the end of year and into 2015. Not all dates on the tour feature the Crüecifly however due to venue limitations.