Colour Sound tours with You Me at Six
- Details
Haydn Cruickshank (H) and the team at Colour Sound worked with Jamie Thompson from MIRRAD who co-designed set, lighting and video together with Dave Cohen, with Cohen directing lighting and visuals on the road.
Thompson explains that the design brief was to create “something big, epic, memorable . . . and cost effective”. Additionally, the band wanted to play two completely different sets - one comprising music from the first album, and the second featuring songs from the latest one and the other four in between. So, the idea was that the show would alternate between these, each with its own look and style.
Taking the Roman ‘VI’ from the album artwork was a visual starting point, Thompson and Cohen wanted to introduce some V-shapes to the stage architecture and accentuate the perspective and depth of the space.
The proposed multi-layered V-shaped risers fronted with LED video panels set the tone with a look that was both striking and practical to tour and build each day. “They are an energetic band, so we wanted to offer them lots of layers and levels to jump and run around on during the performance,” explains Thompson.
Upstage of the set risers were four tall portrait format video screens, hung on angles making up a V shape (with the apex of the V upstage) and in between these were five soft-ladders to give layered lighting positions.
Due to its light weight which made rigging straightforward - and also because they wanted a transparent look - Colour Sound’s BT-20 LED screen was selected for these main screens, while the riser fronts were clad in BT-12.
The Hippotizer Amber media server storing and playing back all the video content was part of the overall control package from MIRRAD including an Avolites console. The video material was commissioned by MIRRAD and produced by Tom and Satoko Wall at Bikini Lab.
Three trusses facilitated the overhead lighting rig - front, back and mid for the largest configurations of the design - plus two diagonal runs of trussing used to fly the four portrait video screens.
The lighting fixtures included 20 x Robe Pointes. They were joined by ProLights Diamond 7 LED washes, six Robe BMFL Spots, primarily for key lighting and Robe LEDWash 600s for additional and supporting wash duties.
The strobes were SGM P7s which also doubled as LED floods and there a quantity of blinders which completed the lighting picture.
(Jim Evans)
