Lime Cordiale has been touring the East Coast with a lighting design by Rob Charles who says that although he did not have an official brief the band, they loved his colour pallet and use of tungsten lighting on the first run of shows.
Rob first did lighting for the band at a festival when he was the house/festival FOH tech. He loved the music and later got a chance to work with the band on 18 heavily restricted sit down Covid-19 shows over nine nights at Oxford Art Factory where he manages the lighting and video elements along with the lighting operating team.
“The vibe of the show is based on a house party in a living room or a disco in a jazz bar,” remarked Rob. “The band and I have a very close relationship, we grow and make changes to elements of the show every time.”
Rob’s design uses a lot of block colour on beat effects with LED bricks that will follow the tempo and feel of the music throughout the whole set. He says he first got this idea from working at large outdoor festivals with Covid-19 restrictions.
“I normally would use these lights as just blinders but having the audience so spread out and far back, I felt the LED brick effects gave them something to dance to and follow the music like they are part of the show,” he said. “This also allows me to use my stage wash lights to light the band up or display nice beam looks over the stage without the need of being on the beat at all times.”
The set includes a lot of big kick in chorus moments where Rob uses his ‘Big Bright Moving Profile Lights’ to project beams over and into the audience.
“I try to make sure the band is lit well for at least half the show as they have a lot of screaming fans, mostly 16-25-year-old girls, that want to see faces but they also love dark strobe lights too.”
Rob is the first full-time lighting director that has toured with the band. Over the last six weeks, they have gone from first full-time lighting director operating only the inhouse or standard festival rig to a small floor package in a van, to a large floor package in a 3t truck and finally to Rob’s lighting goal of their own full rig in an 8t truck for the two home town shows at Sydney’s Enmore Theatre.
“As we grow the production level of the band we hope to tour a set design with vintage lounges, armchairs and furniture,” he added. “We have used vintage furniture from around venues and it works well with the lounge disco jazz bar vibe we are aiming for.”
The lighting rig consists of 24 x Martin MAC Aura wash lights (half in the roof, half on the floor) which are used to back and side light the band. Also for big beam looks and to throw colour around the stage, there are 14x MAC Viper Profiles (eight in the roof, six on the floor) which are used mainly to project beams out and into the audience. Twelve GLP JDC1 strobes (eight up and the rest on the floor) are used to blind the audience and to add coloured block effects on the beat. Five Vintage Blazers are more part of the set to give a nice lounge tungsten jazz feeling.
All programming has been done using MA Lighting grandMA2 lighting software. The show was originally programmed using the grandMA 3D visualization software which Rob also uses to clone fixtures and make changes to his show before each gig.
“I have a strong theatre background so the show is programmed very similar to one you might see on a theatre show,” said Rob. “Most of the songs flow into each other so this works very well. I use Macro’s to go to each part of my cue list in case the band changes their mind on a setlist just before the show. I also use a lot of flash and effect busk buttons during the set. The set features a song where the band has a jam session and this allows me to feel like I’m a part of the jam and can make changes on the fly.”
The show also features two confetti blasters that go off after the blackout in the third chorus of the most popular song Robbery and Rob hopes to add more special effects such as cold sparks and dry ice in the future.
The video element of the show is simply a moving logo loop that features moments where the band’s artwork flies in and out. One of the main reasons Rob has been brought in to work with the band is that he has a strong video background which he can implement into his show via his lighting desk.
“We are currently going through the lighting show to finalise colours for each song so we can create content for each song,” he said. “The video element will feature artwork designed by the lead singer of the band Loui. We also hope for it to include a live video element where I will mix cameras live to screen with a trippy flickering sepia twist.
“My favourite lighting moment of the show is just before the encore when the keyboard player sneaks back on stage and does a five-minute solo backlit and silhouetted by a slowly rotating white gobo. I also love my dark trippy moments during Bridges where I blue out all lights, loose front light and rotate beams into the audience.”
The rig was supplied by ei Productions who Rob says helped him out massively with budgets to get the exact number of fixtures he required.
“It has been amazing to be back doing what I love doing most,” concluded Rob. “I have loved working with the band and I get so much out of seeing crowds dance and party to my lights once again. It has been slow and steady come back but hopefully, I’ll be lighting the band up in arenas and stadiums soon and look forward to hopefully touring overseas to Europe with them.”
