Robe on The Streets in Brixton and beyond
- Details
Co1ab unites the talents of Jon Trincas and Steve Hough, two respected young designers who pooled imaginative and creative resources to deliver the right look for The Streets.
They utilised 120 x Robe Spikies and 30 x Robe Spiider LED wash beams, all delivered as part of a lighting package by Blackburn based rental company, LCR.
Hough was originally contacted by The Streets’ tour manager Keith O’Neill when they played some ‘come back’ gigs in 2018, which culminated in three incendiary gigs at Brixton Academy. The interest in The Streets live resulted in this run, comprising a short UK tour with a lighting floor package, followed by five shows at Brixton, three in Manchester Apollo and three at the O2 Academy in Birmingham. All were sold out.
The lighting design was based on 15 custom dolly/frame pods, made from pre-rigged truss and flown in three rows of five. The bottom ones were ground supported, with the top two rows lined up exactly and flown beneath one another on special steels.
LCR had all the necessary metalwork and rigging fabricated, and all the fixtures associated with these travelled in the pods for expedient get ins and outs.
Each pod contained eight Spikies, two Spiiders, three Hexalines and an LED strobe and together these formed an impressive back wall.
This strong structural element “ticked all the boxes” comments Jon in terms of having the power and intensity right there for specific tracks, while being able to pull right back to minimal when necessary. “Whether it was the massive Spikie looks or a single shaft of spot light, we could retain the essential rawness that at core of this show” added Steve.
In addition to the frames, they had two overhead and two side trusses which were loaded with spot moving lights and strobes, with some more on the floor in the small gaps between the lines of pods. Control was via two grandMA2 light consoles.
Hough was joined on the road for the Brixton and Manchester shows by LCR’s James Townsend, Dan Groves and Aiden Cartmell, and Aiden crewed the first week of the preceding European shows which utilised the floor package and four of the frames. The rest of that section, Steve tech’d on his own. LCR’s account handler was Mike Oates.
Hough concludes: “The great teamwork between us (himself & Jon), LCR and the entire Streets touring crew has been a pleasure.”
(Jim Evans)
