West London based lighting and visuals rental company Colour Sound Experiment supplied lighting equipment and crew for the latest Orbital UK tour – Wonky - which was designed by Jonny Gaskell from Pinnacle Productions.
Orbital, at the cutting-edge of the UK's original electronic dance music scene in the heady days of acid house, showed they are still fresh and innovative 23 years after they recorded their first rave anthem ‘Chime' on their dad's cassette deck!
Gaskell was delighted to be working with Colour Sound again, “Their kit and the attitude is great,” he enthuses, “Nice people and I get premium service every time”.
His design – which will also feature at festivals played by the band throughout the summer – featured an intricate video set up and so to contrast this, the lighting was relatively straightforward – bold, in-the-face and in true Orbital style!
Gaskell chose 13 GLP Impression Spot Ones as his main profile lights and 24 Impression Zooms as the wash fixtures – bringing all the lightness, brightness and zappiness of LED technology to the party – they were perfect for the job!
As a layer of specials, he added Clay Paky Sharpies .. together with loads of strobes and blinders!
It was his first time using Sharpies, so to push them that bit further, he took a bunch of Colour Sound's laser bounce mirrors and used these clamped to various surfaces and dotted all over the stage. These worked a treat as refraction and reflection surfaces, multiplying and intensifying the full Sharpie effect despite only having 13 fixtures on the tour!
They were used particularly spectacularly during a new remix of “Impact”, one of the band's original classic tracks which Gaskell matched in vitality with the lighting and complimentary video!
The lighting rig comprised three overhead trusses, the back of which was also used to hang the video wall, made up from WinVision18 mm pitch surface supplied by Chaos Visuals. Four upright truss sections were stood on the floor upstage of this.
The uprights at the back were rigged with 12 Impression Zooms, four strobes, six 2-lites and some laser mirrors, allowing Gaskell to blast through and make the screen disappear at times.
There were also two mid stage trussing towers - stage left and right - each rigged with a Spot One and an Impression Zoom, a Sharpy, a strobe a blinder and mirrors, all primarily focussed across the band's backline, keyboard and computer bank set up.
Gaskell operated the show using his own Chamsys MagicQ lighting console.
He was joined on the tour by a Colour Sound crew of Richard Gilson and Toby Lovegrove of whom he says are, “Brilliant, and right into the spirit and vibe of the tour”.
Another Colour Sound regular James Hind was on-board as stage manager and everyone worked closely to create a fabulous friendly and productive atmosphere with tour manager Ivan Kushlick.
Orbital's Wonky album was released simultaneously to the tour and has been very well received.
Colour Sound's Fletch comments, “It was a great tour to be involved with. We thoroughly enjoyed working with Ivan and Jonny again, and it's brilliant to see the band right on form”.
For more information on Colour Sound Experiment, please call Louise Stickland on +44 7831 329888/+44 1865 202679 or Email [email protected] To contact Colour Sound direct, please call +44 208 965 9119.