Sydney’s beloved electro-pop twins Cosmo’s Midnight made their Opera House debut at the Joan Sutherland Theatre for a special hometown celebration with the dappled pop beats of their new album Yesteryear. With the release of the new album, lighting designer David Fairless opted for a new lighting direction for the show.
“While I was discussing the direction of the new show with Cosmo’s Midnight, they explained how they enjoyed most playing the sunset slot at a music festival,” explained David. “As the sun sets, it creates a beautiful coloured display in the sky, moving from moody, bright tones into a darker vibe that enhances the atmosphere in the crowd. This is the direction and inspiration I used to create the new show. By starting with bright pastel sunset colours and moving to darker tones, the lighting design reflects the journey of the music and the sun setting.”
This design is intended to be Cosmo’s Midnight’s new touring show, which meant creating a floor package that would work at various stages across festivals and venues. The design needed to be flexible and allow for changes in fixture types and counts.
As this was David’s first live music show back, he wanted to create something new, something different and something he hadn’t done before. With the earlier design considerations, he decided to focus on the features of each lighting fixture. To ensure that the design was effective, he also focused a lot on programming and execution.
“It was the first time the new set was being played and the first time I utilised timecode with Cosmo’s Midnight,” added David. “We made the conscious decision to leave video out and let the lights carry the performance. As I mentioned previously ‘simple design and perfect execution’ was the motto for the show.”
The floor package was provided by Chameleon Touring Systems and consisted of 16 x Martin MAC Vipers, 16 x Martin MAC Aura XBs and 9 x GLP X4 20 bars. Added to that was the extensive house rig already in the Joan Sutherland Theatre. The designs main punch was a tight wall of 16 x MAC Martin Vipers.
“These were perfect CMY mixing machines that could keep up with the colour arrays I was creating,” said David. “A profile fixture is perfect for the music, with smooth pan and tilt accompanied by sharp gobos they were the best choice for this band. I also had 10 x Martin MAC Aura XBs as side light, these worked wonders not only lighting the band but also in darker moodier songs as they panned across their faces mixed with some dimming effects. The GLP x4 20 bars added in the extra depth, intensity and pixel effects that impressed with beautiful colours and a tight wall of beams. These simple yet powerful looks used in unison and cohesively made for a fantastic rig to program and design a show with.”
With the smooth grooves of Cosmo’s Midnight, the simple lighting concept came alive through the programming and execution of cues. David had the opportunity to create complex effects that used all the features of all the lights, creating simple yet powerful looks that timed perfectly with the music.
“Using the sunset theme (moving from daylight into darkness) and the music’s story and tone, I was able to create bands of colour and geometric moving shapes throughout the haze,” elaborated David. “These matched with bright colour sweeps and dark intricate lighting states ….. the show was forever changing!”
Focusing on the intricacies in the music, David used very low-intensity strobes to highlight sections of the music which is something an audience may only subconsciously take in. These intricacies are what made the show special and different.
“Execution is always very important to me, and for this show, I focused on something that is normally discarded: the transitions,” added David. “Usually in transitions, the lights are either black or a sharp blue. However, this time the transitions were smooth and slow like when you’re watching a sunset, you don’t notice the next state has begun.”
David’s favourite moment of the show is an effect originating around a central position, something slow yet powerful that accompanied the music perfectly to create something truly memorising (the first photo). He wanted to create slow beautiful effects so people are taken back by what they are seeing. Sometimes stripped back slow movements can be the most memorable and in the case of Cosmos Midnight’s it certainly was.
The biggest challenge was fro David was the turnaround time. With Covid-19 being so present in today’s day and age they didn’t know if they were even going to be able to do the show. It wasn’t until the week prior they were given the green light to start work and David managed to design, program, and timecoded in one week.
“It was such a shock. I came from Melbourne, which has just endured months of hard lockdown, and I found myself in Sydney, where people aren’t wearing masks and there’s an energetic live music scene. So many people have been doing it tough in our industry, and it was such a privilege to go back into the environment I love the most. Gigs are coming back and I can’t wait to see everyone out on the road again soon.”
David’s year will be rounded out with a show with Hayden James in Brisbane on Christmas Eve.
“He’s like family to me, so we’re both very excited to be working together that night,” he said. “Other than that, it will be my first New Year’s off in a decade, and I can’t wait to spend it with family and friends! Next year is looking big and there are so many amazing festivals happening around the country, so I can’t wait to get back to it.”
Photos: Jordan Munns
