Lighting designer Ian Turner and his company, Southampton-based GLS, supplied 24 Robe ColorSpot 1200 AT fixtures for Irish folk punksters The Pogues’ recent UK arena tour.
This is the first time Turner, who’s designed lighting for the band since 2001, chose the Robe fixtures for use on a full tour. Turner specified the Robe fixtures for their “incredible brightness.” The moving lights needed to hold their own amidst the 200 PAR cans and 24 Molefeys on the rig. The 24 fixtures were distributed across the three-truss rig, on drop bars off the rear truss and on the floor.
Turner utilized the 1200s as wash lights, along with traditional gobo break-ups and big beam effects. To achieve the wash look, he opened the ColorSpots up fully and added the frost filter. “It’s extremely handy to have this up your sleeve if you don’t have the budget for wash lights as well as profiles,” he comments.
He also found the fixtures reliable. “It’s the first time I’ve appreciated the benefits of Robe robustness and tourability first hand,” he says. From a rental company standpoint–as GLS is a lighting rental operation–Turner believes that Robe’s value-for-money helps enable more creative lighting for less budget.
Turner also liked the fact that the ColorSpot produces a rich, saturated red color, which is often hard to achieve with moving lights. There are a couple of key moments in the Pogues show that required graphic red treatment. One is the “Turkish Song of The Damned” and the other, “The Boys From County Hell,” features a red swirling haze of beams and movement. “For the first time I got exactly the effect the band asked for,” Turner enthuses. “It’s the only moving fixture that’s been able to do it so far.”
