Adlib supplied lighting equipment and crew for the recent tour by UK rock band
James who played a mix of UK arenas, academies and city hall venues at the start
of their “Girl At The End of the World’ album campaign. Neil Anderson was the all-
seeing eye and cool handed Tour Director, with Matt Johnson (Road Manager), Cally
Harris (Production Co-Ordinator) and Adam Johnston (Stage Manager.)

Lighting was designed by Chris Montrie and lighting crew chief Ben Hodgkins
advanced and co-ordinated all the lighting tenders and related elements of the tour.
Montrie is based in Washington DC so he and Hodgkins liaised closely in advance
and as the tour was approaching, with Hodgkins ensuring that everything was
prepped and ready to go for Montrie when he arrived at Adlib for a two-day
WYSIWYG programme prior to production rehearsals.

Montrie had a free reign in creating the design with some input from the band and
the lighting rig was inspired by the album artwork for the “Girl at the End of the
World’, with a girl sitting on a bench and the sun in the background.

They settled on four straight trusses that were split in the middle – inverted V style,
flown at different heights and raked … which give the optical impression of a curved
look. These were joined by straight 40ft front and mid trusses and an upstage truss
to support the 40 x 30ft LED starcloth backdrop.

For moving lights, Montrie chose 16 x Martin MAC Viper Profiles, with eight on the
floor and eight in the air; eight MAC Viper Washes, split four and four between floor
and air and 20 x MAC Quantum LED washes, 16 spread around the roof trusses to
provide the base washes with the other four on the floor.

Sixteen Clay Paky Mythos rigged on the overhead trusses were the primary effects
fixtures – picked for their power and versatility.

Seven Source 4 profiles provided key lighting and specials, fitted with 26 degree
lenses.

The floor lights were on 6ft high risers and joining them were 10 x 5K fresnels on
Manfrotto stands at 6ft and 12ft high arranged in an M shape, bringing a retro
“lensed’ look to the stage. They had Lee 147 (Apricot) filters fitted to replicate the
orange glow of the album graphics.

Twenty-two 2 x 2-cell moles were used for accents and punctuation together with
four Atomic 3000 strobes and for the arenas, two Magic FX confetti blowers … a
last minute request that was sourced by Adlib in their usual fuss-free manner.

Control was two of Adlib’s Avolites Pearl Expert 2015 consoles, with Avo ART
dimmers – two T4 racks – and a 72-way hot power rack.

Adlib’s Lighting Manager Dave Eldridge commented, “It has been brilliant to be
involved with such an iconic live band as James. Neil, Ben & Chris have been great
and really ahead of the game so everything went really smoothly.’