Lighting designer was Andy Liddle, who last designed for the Mondays back in the mid-eighties when they were supporting New Order. He was asked onboard to do these shows by tour manager Neil Mather. The tour was project managed for HSL by Mike Oates.
Liddle designed an adaptable rig based on four upstage/downstage 'fingers' of truss which were assembled in 10ft modules. This was for easy break down and installation into the smaller venues, whist still retaining the look and aesthetics of the stage. The fingers were raked with the upstage ends lower and the downstage ends higher points. At Manchester they appeared almost vertical in perspective when viewed from the auditorium.
For Manchester, each of the fingers - constructed from Tomcat 12 x 12 Truss - was rigged to its full 40 ft length, containing four Robe ColorSpot 1200 and four ColorWash 1200 moving lights, eight JTE PixelLine battens, four Martin Atomic strobes and four linear Moles. The creative idea behind the fingers was to form a 4 x 4 matrix of lighting sources, which fitted in neatly with the 6 video/LED screen arrangement.
On the floor were 10 MAC 300s and a selection of PARs. Liddle ran the show himself using a WholeHog II console and an expander Wing, with the PixelLines driven via a PixelDrive triggered by the desk. All dimming was Avolites ART. HSL supplied their own customised power distros and their newly purchased Luminex Boxes that have been recently added to HSL's hire stock.
HSL also supplied and undertook additional rigging at Manchester, primarily for the video kit from MCL. HSL provided five 20 ft runs of Litec QL76 heavy duty truss and six 2 tonne Lodestar motors to hang the three onstage LED Barco D-lite video walls.
At the FOH position HSL rigged a further eight Robe ColorSpot 1200s and ColorWash 1200 moving heads, plus 8 Atomics on an X shaped truss for audience lighting and for when DJ Clint Boon surfed the dex during changeovers. This was suspended by another four Lodestars.
(Jim Evans)
