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Colour Sound supplies Above & Beyond with lighting kit and LED screens

Colour Sound supplies Above & Beyond with lighting kit and LED screens
Colour Sound supplies Above & Beyond with lighting kit and LED screens

The trancey electro beats of Above & Beyond filled London’s Wembley Arena for a special one off concert which was also a charity fundraiser and celebrated the life and work of Jono Grant’s sister Charlotte who died suddenly earlier in 2015. All proceeds from the show went to Little Something. Lighting and the video system was designed by Neil Marsh, working closely with all three members of Above & Beyond - Jono, Tony McGuinness and Paavo Siljamăki - with lighting kit and LED screens supplied by Colour Sound Experiment.

 

Marsh started working with the band after lighting their set at Glastonbury’s Dance East a few years back, and he now co-ordinates lighting and visuals worldwide for all shows, primarily working with local productions in large one-off scenarios. He decided on a completely new design for the Wembley show.

 

The idea of twelve truss spines - running upstage/downstage, six hung in a curved arrangement cascading onstage to offstage each side of the DJ booth - created the basic stage architecture. Having the spine trusses each side also left the space for a large block of LED which is suited to the style of the visuals. While the LED elements available vary from gig to gig, the one large surface is preferred rather than a fragmented look and on this occasion it was Colour Sound’s new proprietary BT-7 HD screen.

 

Two trusses were rigged either side at the front of stage, each loaded with six Robe BMFL Spots placed for scanning over the audience and pulling them into the action. The 12 x spine trusses - of three different lengths - were populated with a total of 50 x Clay Paky Sharpys, 50 x 2-lite blinders and 26 x strobes. The bottom of each truss was outlined with Colour Sound’s house 1 metre LED strips - utilising 60 units in total.

 

The front of the DJ booth was clad with 12 active Showtec Sunstrips to differentiate it from the screen. On the floor were another 12 x BMFL Spots, 12 Robe LEDWash 600s and 22 x Atomic strobes arranged in pairs. The screen measured 15 metres wide by 7 high and its 7 mm resolution offered a 1920p pixel surface for the content which needed no mapping or manipulation. Two 3x3 metre side screens were 400 pixels wide.

 

All lighting was run off a ChamSys MQ200 console, through which Marsh also triggered the visuals. Video for Above & Beyond’s larger shows is stored on two Mac Pro servers running a mix of Millumin and Mad Mapper software platforms for playback, all controlled via VizSys, which was coded by Timo Reunanen and Paavo Siljamăki.

 

Triggered from an iPad at FOH running a custom version of TouchOSC, the midi clock from the mixer is included in the coding on the Mac Pros to keep the visuals in sync. They can also check the status of the video network from FOH and see that the decks and DJ mixer are connected and working, as well as chat to the band onstage over iChat if necessary to deal with on-the-fly set changes. Footage from two web cams and a GoPro onstage can also be introduced to the video mix at various points.

 

There’s no MC’ing during Above & Beyond shows, they communicate with the audience by typing text onto the screen via a modified laptop. Most of the visuals are produced by Dylan Byrne but all the band have input into them, especially Tony McGuiness. Some of the screen material is graphics, but Above & Beyond visuals don’t follow any standard EDM formats.

 

Supporting Neil Marsh was a Colour Sound crew of four including crew chief Sam Campbell (Sam Cam), Franki McDade, Stu Barr and Hadyn Williams. Dave Kyle - also a Colour Sound regular - is currently working as Marsh’s production visuals partner-in-crime. He’s assisting Marsh with all the video mapping and cameras.

 

www.coloursound.co.uk

 

Colour Sound supplies Above & Beyond with lighting kit and LED screensColour Sound supplies Above & Beyond with lighting kit and LED screens

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