Colour Sound provided both lighting and LED screen for H's lighting and visual design. His relationship with the band dates back 22 years, with this tour a continuing 20th anniversary celebration of their seminal first album, dubnobasswithmyheadman, a special expanded edition of which was released in late 2014.
H received a loose brief for the lighting, which was that it should be 'minimal', so he kept things restrained, raw and relatively monochromatic for the first half of the show, which was a powerful and complete rendition of dubnobasswithmyheadman - performed live in its entirety for the first time ever.
After this, he morphed the lightshow into a different style which became funkier and more colourful as the set continued. The rig was straightforward in terms of structure with three overhead trusses - front, mid and rear - and the complexities and detail of the visual picture added with layering created by pushing all the fixtures to the max.
Moving lights were 18 Clay Paky Alpha Spot 1500s, 16 Robe LEDWash 1200s and 18 CP Sharpys, joined by 16 Martin Atomic strobes, 24 active Showtec Sunstrips, eight 4-lites and four Novalight Super Novas. These were distributed between the three trusses and the floor, with the four Nova-Flowers upstage on the deck, plus four ETC Source Fours for key lighting on the front truss.
At the back, concealed behind the band risers, was a 2m circular truss which flew up for a couple of specific numbers before going back down and disappearing again, and on this were 12 Chauvet Beam LEDs. Atmospherics were high on the agenda, with H utilising five devices positioned for strategic hazing - a Jem Glaciator and two ZR44 foggers together with two Reel EFX DF-50s. For control he used one of Colour Sound's ChamSys MQ300s.
The LED screen was hung off the back rail of the rear truss and comprised 75 panels of Colour Sound's proprietary BT6 LED screen. Video content was run by Toby Vogel - this also fitted into the minimalist oeuvre with the start of each new number preceded by a single word appearing on the screen in black and white.
H was joined on the lighting crew by Chris Brown, James Hind and Franki McDade.
(Jim Evans)
