HSL's production manager Mike Oates comments: "We've been looking at serious high powered search lights for some time now, and both myself and Howard Dean have watched the A&O Lighting brand develop in Europe with interest. When Nick first mentioned he wanted to use them on the tour I was straight on to Marco Niedermeier [MD of A&O] to see if the units where available, which luckily they were! It was a pleasure to work with Nick, Phil and Neil from Electric Fly on this tour - from a suppliers point of view, they makes things very simple."
The influential Glasgow "post rock" band have been on a world tour since the start of the year, which has seen various different legs and carried varying amounts of production. Their visuals have been looked after throughout by Nick Jevons, their LD of eight years, with some sections operated by Neil Trenell when Jevons had other commitments.
For the European section preceding the current short UK and European production run, HSL supplied Trenell with 16 i-Pix Satellite LED fixtures (the latest design from LED guru Chris Ewington) and four Martin Professional Atomic strobes with colour changers, which were used in conjunction with the house rigs at different venues.
For the Albert Hall show, the lighting production was boosted for the occasion, with HSL supplying six of the brand new Falcon Beams, plus two Falcon Flowers, which are the same units, converted into giant split-beam effects with the addition of a 'Flower' attachment. Jevons had first used these fixtures on shows in Dubai earlier in the year.
Other fixtures supplied by HSL were 18 Martin MAC 2K luminaires (10 Profiles and 8 Washes), 10 additional Atomic strobes with colour-changers and another 20 i-Pix Satellites.The A-type trussing and Jevon's Maxxy's console was supplied by Bandit Lites UK. Jevons ran everything off the Maxxys apart from the Falcon Beams, which were controlled by Trenell using his Avolites D4 Desktop PC control system.
The trussing was used to construct a large sculpture incorporating the letters 'MYT' (for Mogwai Young Team - their first and critically acclaimed full length studio album). This creation sat upstage against a black backdrop, and was dramatically revealed after the fourth song by a kabuki drop. Toned with i-Pix Satellites, it gave the stage a real sense of architectural form, depth and height.
It was the intention to keep the MYT truss separate from the rest of the rig which was all floor based, giving the stage a real sense of intimacy and closeness in relation to the lighting rig.Jevons says: "Electric Fly has just started working with HSL and we like their attitude. They got the Falcon Beams in specially for this show and have really helped us out in every way, including sorting custom gobos for some of the MACs." He adds that he's also really impressed with HSL's mains distro systems.
(Lee Baldock)
