For the recent U.S. leg of Coheed and Cambria's 2025 tour, lighting designer Ben Jarrett of Squeek Lights crafted a dazzling visual feast using Elation’s award-winning new PARAGON moving head as his primary spot fixture.

The PARAGON M played a central role in shaping the visuals while supporting the band’s unique Amory Wars narrative, including the dramatic lighting of a full-sized inflatable character on stage. New Jersey-based Squeek Lights, a one-stop shop for stage lighting in the area, provided all lighting, video, and rigging for the tour.

The co-headlining tour with Mastodon, which ran from early May to June 8, showcased 34 PARAGON M fixtures—24 mounted in two striking 3-stick chevron truss arrays over the stage, and 10 on the downstage truss for frontlight.

“They’ve been amazing,” said LD Jarrett, who fulfilled a number of roles on the tour. “No issues at all. It’s a great little light—small enough to fit cleanly into GT truss and powerful enough to cut through a full video wall with ease.”

The designer tapped into the PARAGON’s multi-functionality, using the fixtures as spots, gobo projectors, and mid-air beam lights. He praises the fixture’s 37,000-lumen output, high build quality, and IP54 rating. “It’s very bright—we’re getting more output than a 1000W discharge fixture. We’ve been indoors, outdoors, and in dusty fields—six weeks in, and they’ve handled it all.”

Jarrett’s design supports both Coheed’s storytelling and the high-energy concert experience. The production includes ‘Blind Side Sonny,’ a towering inflatable character with spiked armor and illuminated eyes central to The Amory Wars, the sci-fi epic penned by frontman Claudio Sanchez that fuels the band’s music. Jarrett uses the PARAGONs’ dual rotating gobo wheels, animation wheel, and advanced framing shutters to highlight Sonny with animated lightplay, while avoiding spill on the 20' h x 40' w LED wall behind him.

“Sonny is as important to light as the lead singer,” the designer says, adding that he designed the entire rig around it. The inflatable reaches 28 feet high and sits center stage beneath a chevron of PARAGONs that can illuminate it from any angle. “Having the full suite of gobo and animation tools gives me the flexibility to bring him to life,” he adds.

Coheed and Cambria, one of the most original bands in rock, weave an imaginative tale across multiple albums through mythical storytelling and hard-driving music. Jarrett explains that Coheed and Cambria’s songs take place inside of an epic sci-fi world, each album another chapter in an ever-evolving story. When playing live, that story is echoed on stage with atmospheric lighting, LED graphics and full-size set pieces that help build a universe around the music.

The lighting design occasionally ties directly into The Amory Wars narrative. For example, Jarrett colors one classic track, “Everything Evil,” in hues of yellowish green that recall its 2002 album art. Still, he notes that the overall design is more about creating atmosphere and impact, providing a dynamic backdrop to the band’s latest studio album “The Father of Make Believe,” released in March.

PARAGON is Elation’s new flagship series of LED profile luminaires and represents the culmination of years of development and feedback from lighting designers. Squeek Lights was among the first U.S. rental houses to invest in the series, recognizing the fixture's potential early on. “PARAGON really checked all the boxes for us,” says Squeek Lights Managing Partner Victor Zeiser. “It’s an extraordinary fixture. It includes a number of cutting-edge features and its versatility as a multi-purpose light is very attractive. It does everything we need it to.”

In addition to the PARAGONs, the Coheed rig features 32 Elation Cuepix 16IP blinders lining each truss—RGBA color-mixing blinders that Jarrett has used on past tours. Mastodon’s opening set is supported with a separate package that includes Elation SŌL I Blinders designed by LD Eric Price.

Jarrett reports that the PARAGONs performed great on the tour. “This tour demands a lot from our lighting package, and the PARAGONs have delivered night after night.”

As Coheed and Cambria prepare to extend the tour through Europe and into a summer leg with Taking Back Sunday, the LD confirms he’ll continue using the same PARAGON setup.

Lighting Designer: Ben Jarrett 
Lighting Vendor. Squeek Lights
Stage Manager/ L1: Mark "Chud" Williams
L2: Ian Fanning
V1: Andre Dionne

Photos: Sarah Hess

About Elation
At Elation, we collaborate with leading professionals in the lighting industry to help bring extraordinary experiences to life. As a designer and manufacturer of a wide range of high-performance entertainment lighting products, we’re proud to be a trusted partner to top lighting professionals and rental houses around the world. Our commitment to quality, innovation, and creative solutions has made us a go-to resource in the industry. We also offer an advanced line of lighting control products through Obsidian Control Systems, and a full range of dependable specialty effects called Magmatic.