WWW.LSIONLINE.COM • APRIL 2020 59O ON TOUR
I was full-time, he’d make space for me to go off and do short
tours with bands around Scotland. One of those bands was
Prides. That’s where I first worked with our production manager
Nick Lawrie, and Scott Smyth our tour manager, though neither
did those roles back then. We’ve stuck together pretty much
ever since. The peak for Prides was playing the John Peel stage
at Glasto’ in 2015, but it was two years ago when Nick asked me
to light Lewis for a show at the Glasgow ABC, and I’ve been with
him ever since. I’d left the Hydro by then - my boss had been
really flexible, but it got to the point where I needed to take too
much time off for tours, which wasn’t really fair on them.”
Wilson reels off design stints with Bear’s Den, Fatherson, Wet
Wet Wet, Belle and Sebastian and Twilight Sad; no wonder he
had to leave the full-time venue job.
“It’s funny to remember that my first rig for Lewis comprised
a row of [GLP impression] X4 Bars and a rear projection screen;
this is quite a step up in just two years.” It’s good to see that
Wilson is still in place. In fact, that’s true of several members of
Capaldi’s production team who put in the spade work in the
early days and are reaping the rewards now. Good for them.
On working with a show designer for the first time, Wilson says:
“Squib and Dan have been very inclusive right from the beginning.
Back in October last year, they sent me the original concept
drawings. I knew already that moving up to arenas was not just
a matter of scaling up what you do at smaller venues; I was pleased
to see their ideas. One of the interesting things was seeing the
portrait oriented rear screen; Lewis really likes portrait screens.”
Wilson didn’t know if Cassius were aware of that when they
submitted their first design, or whether it was just a happy
coincidence.
“The development of lighting for each song starts with the choice
of colour palette, which comes from Cassius. Even so, Lewis and
his manager Ryan Walter have a thing about deep reds - I had
been using them a lot and you will see a lot of red in the first few
numbers. It’s an echo of what’s been done before. The other thing
is familiarity: I know the songs really well and how Lewis
performs. Dan or Squib would ask me: ‘What’s he going to be
doing here?’ Overall, it’s a very different discipline, the process of
developing an arena show has given me new ideas.”
Ideas that should bear fruit in the future, as Wilson reveals: “I’ve
now teamed up with another LD, Ronnie Phipps, and we are
called MaMo Lighting Design. While I’m working on Lewis, I’m
also collaborating on designs, most recently Agnes Obel and
Zemfira from Russia.” Not one for sitting still, it will be
interesting to see how Wilson’s career develops.
PRODUCTION MANAGEMENT
For PM Nick Lawrie, this is his first tour at arena level. A former
monitor man for Lewis, I asked him how the step up is going for
him? “Both Scott [Smyth, tour manager] and I have worked
together for a long time; we met many years ago working for a
Scottish synth pop band called Prides. I was their FOH engineer,
he was their backline tech, then eventually their tour manager.”“After Prides wrapped up,” he continues, “I was working for
various bands and PA companies - Scott had moved onto tour
managing an act called Young Fathers. When they needed
a monitor engineer, I was asked to join the touring party for their
headline tours; I would also step into the role of PM where it
was needed. From there, I moved on to working with Lewis
where I did everything - FOH, drove the van, washed the
dishes... That was early 2017. I knew his manager and it was
clear to me that Lewis had real talent. When the need for
a backline tech arose, I called in Scott, who quickly moved into
tour management when the dedicated role was required, while
Gary [Wilson, LD] first became involved at that time as well.”Does the PM role fall easily to him? “During my earlier years as
a sound engineer, I had worked full-time with a PA company. In
the summer, we frequently supplied festivals and would cover
five or six stages. I used to PM those gigs, so I got a lot of
experience managing relatively complex projects involving
people, equipment and schedules. I saw for myself that I had
a strength in that department and I really enjoyed it; that said,
for quite a while I was wearing two hats - sound engineer and
PM, which is not an uncommon mix these days.”How about this tour? “We have nine trucks for an arena
production, not many but it looks the part. I knew of all the
vendors we are using and had limited prior experience of them
all. For example, when we spoke to Cassius, we were considering
a lot of different designers - we wanted the widest choice for
Lewis to select from. It might sound like a crazy comparison, but
Lewis had seen Kanye West’s performance at Glastonbury and
wanted that kind of focus on big, bold, clean looks, and a degree
of theatricality. They’ve certainly delivered on that.”Lawrie continues: “To select lighting and video suppliers we
looked at three or four suppliers apiece and did so in
consultation with Cassius. That led us to Neg Earth, who have
done a great job. They sent us Dave Wolstenholme to
programme the board for Gary and that went very smoothly.”I spoke to Wolstenholme during rehearsals - as well as being an
extremely competent technician, he is a very outward, engaging