An abundantly effulgent weekend, Part 2

Felicitations my dear disciples of the light beam!

As explained in the last post, our most recent excursions took us on a 2 day trip comprising 2 exciting events, so to keep it a little more bite-size, this latest entry is appearing in 2 separately posted parts. Part 2 follows below…

PART 2, Saturday 8th May

In the final few days leading up to Acid Gallery a late booking to light the cosmic stoner rock band OBIAT the following evening came through, again at The Gaff on North London’s Holloway Road. Always hungry for more action zapping live acts with our freaky image projections, we avidly accepted, despite being in need of rest that evening.

After a heavy night working the lamps at the Acid Gallery, the arrangement this time was fortunately much more easy-going. First of all, we were hired specifically to light their band and only their band for the duration of their set (a novel experience for us and one we enjoyed immensely) – which was fortunate since there were 3 other bands playing that night, all of whom had a skull-crushing sound not particularly in the spacey mould that befits the Anti-Gravity Chamber experience. This had the powerful effect of causing OBIAT to stand out from the other bands even further than they already did. While the support bands (all of whom by the way were extremely tight, punchy acts who got the crowd very excited) played before an entirely black back wall, lit only by the venue’s stage lights – which actually suited better their doomy grindcore sounds, OBIAT (whose epic cosmic rock sound can fairly be described as mind-blowing)  emerged on the stage in an ethereal, brightly coloured aura, as though they had been teleported there, via our projectors, from another world – or perhaps as though they were holograms of the real band and were actually being transmitted while performing in another dimension!

 

Laz, OBIAT vox

Raf, guitar

Alex, bass

Admittedly, the approach we took to lighting this band was fairly workmanlike – we used a previously tried and tested 4 projector set-up with 2 stands, each holding one projector either side, and no slides or film projectors – but the approach was highly effective and did not require any greater effort. The band loved the enhanced level of experience with which we embellished their music and so did the audience. They have promised a return invitation on a future engagement and we’ll be happy to oblige them – with a newer and improved amoury of effects, images and equipment!

 

Salute to OBIAT

Just lighting one band allowed us to turn up late enough to set up and not have to stay too late into the evening, so with the kind assistance of the band, we packed down efficiently, got our ride home with lead guitarist Raf and neatly set our kit aside for our next show – this Thursday at Victor Talking Machine’s debut club night, Club Chameleon. Hope to see you there…