Many a rock guitarist has been described as ‘lightning-fingered’ – but Wang Hongbin has the stuff coming out of his head.
He is part of a ten-piece band who wear ferroalloy metal suits while standing on powerful Tesla coil transformers to generate bolts of electricity which flash to the beat during gigs.
The engineer formed group Lightningfan after making his first Tesla coil at his home near Fuzhou in Fujian province, China.
The Tesla coil was invented in 1891 as a transformer that produces large amounts of voltage at high frequencies – the source of the ‘lightning bolts’ of electricity that are then captured by the surrounding hood.
The bandmembers avoid being electrocuted by wearing the specially-adapted suits. By wiring up their instruments to the system, the bolts jump to the beat of the music – making for quite a light show.
