Radiohead’s long-serving lighting designer, Andi Watson utilised 48 German Light Products X4 L LED spots and 14 X4 Bar 20 battens, supplied by Upstaging in the States, and Neg Earth during the European tour.
Watson commented: “My job is to create an environment for the Radiohead songs to exist within the stage. With so many layers to what they do, many different instruments and lots going on, I have to build complex arrangements to represent the songs visually.”
“There are two front trusses, one for the front line and one for the two drummers and bass player,” Watson said. “I need to keep the angle of incidence high to avoid bounce back on the elliptical screen, which has been sprayed silver and covered in glitter.
“I’ve always been a big fan of the X4, but when we came to do this tour knowing we would be headlining festivals such as Coachella and Glastonbury, I knew I couldn’t really light the crowd adequately with those fixtures. So instead, on those two front trusses, we have these lovely X4 L,” Watson explained.
In addition to lighting the audience there are a further 14 fixtures upstage, used to backlight the band, and a further 14 on the floor. “I was looking at fixtures for the tour and he suggested the X4 Bars which [GLP US president] Mark Ravenhill had shown me briefly at LDI last year. I love how you can make light move within the fixture. In the first cue of the show the X4 Bars create slowly modulating shadows on the screen. They are the only fixtures on, but really effective. I love texture and beams and movement and the X4 Bars do that really well.”
Crew Chief Travis Robinson, Lighting Director Rob Gawler and Catalyst and Camera head man, Ed Jackson also worked on the tour. “Touring is hard work and I always want things to be perfect so it is crucial to me that the crew can see that their hard work really makes a difference and the result is something we can all be really proud of,” Watson concluded.
