A Colour Sound crew of 25 and several hundred lighting fixtures hit the tors of Somerset and imbibed the vibes and the beautiful rolling countryside of Worthy Farm for the five-day event, which again sold out to its 135,000 capacity despite erratic weather and heavy rain through much of the weekend.
Colour Sound's Haydn Cruickshank comments, "I am extremely proud that we are involved in all the most alternative and coolest elements of the site. A serious amount of effort goes in to the detail from everyone involved, and the results speak for themselves in terms of visuality, scope for fun and enjoyment and providing some excellent entertainment!"
Colour Sound has worked on many other Block 9 projects over the years and the radical set design duo returned to Glasto 2014 with a 24-hour showcase of unconventional performances taking place on the Genosys stage and two other major visual experiences - London Underground - a mean looking tower block with a tube train trashing out of it - and the lowbeat vibes of NYC Downlow.
All of these received lighting and visuals treatment from Alan King of Rockin' Horse, who was also the main lighting operator in Genosys.
A wide variety of fixtures were supplied including Robe LEDWash 600s and 1200s and Cyclones (high powered fans with LED ring), together with Chauvet Colour Band Pix IPs lighting the main Genosys pods, plus a shed load of strobes and Moles - without which no Block 9 creation would be complete!!
Alan King ran the lighting using his own ChamSys MagicQ console and comments, "As always it was great working with H and the Colour Sound team to create one of the best looking and liveliest areas on the site".
Perhaps the most talked about precinct of Block 9 for all those working at Glasto was the infamous Maceo's Crew Bar, which opened a week before the site went public and was the hub of the Glasto working community. Accessible to anyone with a crew pass it has fast acquired semi-legendary status as the coolest after-hours meeting place on site. Colour Sound's crew for Block 9 was chiefed by the unfazable Andy Melleney.
Colour Sound has also worked with Arcadia for some time, including last year when the giant spider landed at Pilton for the first time. This year's lighting design was an evolution of the 2013 creation with upgraded kit, and also had a new production manager - Tim Smith from Smash Productions.
Colour Sound deployed a load of their new Robe Pointe multi-purpose moving lights and 100 DragonLED 220 external PARs for lighting the impressive structure made from scrap metal and ex-military hardware. The DragonLEDs feature six-colour LEDs - RGBWA and UV - and looked fantastic as the huge metal beast gave main stage headliners Metallica a run for their money in terms of hardware credentials!
Other lighting included Robe LEDWash 600s, Clay Paky Alpha Spot 1500s and another huge smoke emporium, all operated by Jamie from Arcadia using an Avolites Sapphire Touch. Colour Sound's Crew Chief for the area was Stu Barr.
One of the most laid back and attractive areas on site - despite the gloopy mud - with more superlative music and vibes is Glade, ensconced in the trees in its own little world. Glade lighting was again designed by Colour Sound's own Jasper Johns, who operated, together with Sam Akinwale.
They used a combination of Robe Pointes, Clay Paky Sharpies and GLP Spot One LED washes together with generics and strobes. Along with Colour Sound's BT6 high resolution LED screen at the back of the stage for visuals and four 3 Watt RGB lasers, there was a host of other architectural lights and some huge glitter balls. Contro
