One of the more widely acclaimed and viewed virtual concerts during lockdown has been the recent live internet performance from psych-pop stars, Glass Animals, which made use of GLP’s new strobe hybrid.
The popular Oxford-based quartet were all set to tour their chart-topping Dreamland album this Spring until lockdown came along.
When their lighting team, Cassius Creative, was eventually called into play by tour/production manager Simon Lutkin, it was to produce a viewable online show Live In The Internet – a dynamic audiovisual concert experience masterminded by the band’s inventive frontman, Dave Bayley.
Set up nearly five years ago by Chris 'Squib' Swain and Dan Hill, Cassius Creative dipped into their armoury of GLP fixtures and at the same time became one of the first adopters of the new JDC Line hybrid strobe batten. This combines a powerful linear white strobe element and two separate RGB LED pixel mapping lines, all in a slimline format that complements the classic JDC1. To Swain and Hill it simply seemed like “a natural extension”.
The virtual venue chosen for this unique showcase was the LH3 rehearsal/prep space at Neg Earth, the lighting hire company who would have been delivering the tour inventory. During the hour-long performance the band reimagined their renowned live show for streaming, and were joined along the way by singer-songwriter Arlo Parks and rapper Denzel Curry.
Using inspired video content from Russian company Sila Sveta to create an ever-changing immersive environment, the show tested the lighting artists’ ability to combine the dynamic impact of a pop video, or TV promo, with a full length concert: “The band didn’t want it to feel like a music video – they wanted it to be as live as possible,” state the two LDs.