The live touring campaign for the newly released Citizen of Glass, Obel's third album, started gently with a six-week bus-and-trailer tour around Europe.
Needing to make a serious visual impact with a few versatile lights that would take up minimal space, Luke specified six Robe DL4S LED Profiles and six of the new Spiider LED washbeams as a floor package, which packed down neatly for stowage in the trailer with the backline.
Positioned around Agnes and her four-piece band on a riser layout created by stage manager Wayne Chapelle, these 12 fixtures provided the bulk of the show lighting, augmented with elements from the different house rigs at each venue.
As quality and quantity of house rigs varied greatly along with the sizes of the venues from small arenas in France to tiny studio performance spaces in other parts of Europe, having these 12 Robe luminaires enabled Luke to maintain continuity and develop a stylish aesthetic.
Agnes is actively involved in how she likes to look onstage, so ahead of the tour she and Luke discussed potential lighting treatments. She likes bold colours, lots of back light and gobos with the music always the focus.
Luke interpreted this into a series of clean, elegant atmospheric looks that enhanced the band subtly and evoked just enough of an edge to make the visual experience exhilarating and dramatic to match the music.
"I wanted a classical poppy ambience - a bit magical and serene - and needed a rig that was really flexible, practical, light weight and quick to get in and out. Other than that, many of the variations are down to him being able to master the intricacies of the music and vocals and express these with appropriate lighting effects."
Two Spiiders and two DL4S Profiles graced the downstage corners of the stage, with four Spiiders along the back behind the risers, together with the other four DL4s dotted around at the rear of the band risers where they were ideally placed for gobo and silhouette looks.
The lights were supplied by Meerhout, Belgium based rental company Demon which has a large stock of Robe fixtures.
(Jim Evans)
