Featuring songs drawn not only from Gary Numan’s latest album and a back catalogue favourites. LD Luke Edwards (of Cue Design) also made sure there was plenty of inventory from GLP to highlight both the theatrical and more dynamic electronic elements.
As Numan’s long-term lighting designer, Edwards has seen production values raised incrementally over the years, and now with a full orchestra, the bar has been lifted again. “Everything was much bigger and needed more space on the floor, while the orchestra adds so much drama which gives me a lot of sounds that I can accent or do lights to.”
Of his journey with GLP’s market-leading LED tools, he said that having been weaned on the X4, when the X4 Bar 20s came along he went into overdrive. ”That was instrumental in me looking a bit more deeply into GLP,” he says. “When the Bar 20 came out I really liked it, and I don’t think we have done a show since without them.”
In addition, he has found that GLP’s JDC1 hybrid strobe, run in aggressive flash mode, to be a perfect solution to highlight the powerful electronic element of Gary Numan’s music. “The show itself,” he said, “is lit like a dramatic theatre piece with an electronic rock and roll element overlaid on top”.
He deployed 24 GLP X4 Bar 20’s as part of the backdrop, with a further 12 of the fixtures as side lights, and 36 on the overhead rig, where they kept company with 16 JDC1s. The remaining eight hybrid strobes were part of the floor package.”
In terms of the Bars’ functionality, because production was using the new Avolites Synergy technology they needed a pixel batten to be able to map video across the fixtures. They were used both for narrow effects as well as for wide side light.
As for Luke’s introduction to the JDC1, this had come via David Stewart at GLP’s UK office. “He brought some to a show for me to demo them,” remembers Luke. “As a result we had them out with Jessie J for the summer – and that convinced me to use them for the Numan shows.”
Finally, GLP X4’s positioned on the side trusses helped light the orchestra. “The colour palette on this ranged from deep red, blues and greens to pastels – and anywhere in between,” he confirms.
Luke Edwards’ product selection certainly paid handsome dividends and provided features that comparable fixtures would have been unable to deliver. “The X4 Bar, for instance, is something that in my opinion is the only thing of its kind on the market. As for the JDC1, at the moment for me, it is the best-LED fixture out there. It provides the best of both worlds – the big colour plate and then the white led beam which is very close to an old Martin Atomic.”
The shows were piloted from two Avolites Sapphires. “The way Avolites handles multi-instance fixtures is great, especially when we have X4 Bars in full [single pixel] 89 channel mode,” he said in summary.
Inventory was provided for the tour by PRG, and Luke Edwards confirms that all GLP fixtures behaved perfectly throughout the tour without the necessity for a single swap-out.
Edwards has assisted in programming the show by Pete Budd. Other members of the team were Bradley Stokes (Crew Chief), Daniel Everitt (Dimmer Tech) and Tom Prew (Video Tech).
Read the full Gary Numan production profile in the January issue of TPi.