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 The NME Carling Premier Shows heralded a week of irreverence, liggerati,
debauchery, rock 'n' roll behaviour, fun and rocking music from the cream of the UK's talented young bands. Better know as 'The Brats' - a characteristic up-your-bum antithesis to the ever corporate and conservative Brit Awards ..... despite it's heavy branding, the Brats still retains the vestiges of rawness, energy and anarchy.
Staged at The London Astoria in Charing Cross Road, the week of events culminated in the Premier Awards. It also included one night hosting the NME Premier Tour which blasted its way around the UK, headlined by Shack, in the 2 weeks prior to the Astoria showcase.
In terms of emerging young talent, this is a seminal event in the music business calendar. The Astoria's resident lighting designer Dave Farmer, knowing he'd be away in Australia at the time, asked fellow LD Dave Gibbon to co-ordinate the project and ensure the week ran smoothly, with everyone involved getting what they wanted and needed lighting wise.
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 This required the energising of Dave's communication skills as well as those as an LD and programmer! The meticulous advance work included contacting LD's from each headline acts and getting their plots and specs in advance. He then designed a generic lighting plot from the house rig, and co-ordinated all additional hires to provide each band with their desired extras. Dave chose to work with Bristol-based Utopium Lighting for the additionals, which included four motors, two sections of 8ft flown trusses, four vertical towers, eight Martin MAC 500s and four MAC 600s.
From Avolites, he sourced a Diamond III console. This is one of the most universally popular lighting consoles for live operation, particularly appropriate for situations like The Brats, with extremely limited programming and set up time for each evening's show. The
Diamond III is also one of the easiest and most intuitive lighting consoles to busk.
The Diamond III was run in conjunction with the Astoria's own Avolites
Sapphire 2000 and Azure 2000 consoles. The only act to bring in their own lighting desk was The Beta Band, who's LD Ross Malyon hired an Avolites
Pearl 2000 from Utopium for their slot.
Dave Gibbon also had to liase with the Premier Show's producer Anna Whiting and director Matthew Amos from the NME as well as the television and video crew who were filming the event for the NME and Channel Four. The moving image department all had their own very specific lighting requirements - which he had to provide. The shows were also recorded and broadcast on Radio One.
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 Apart from accommodating the visiting headliner's LDs each night, Dave also had to accommodate up to two other LDs per evening - for acts earlier on the bill. He also had to re-patching the rig daily according to the new plot, patch in any extra lights required or brought in each day, help programme the desks and moving lights ..... and also operate for them as required.
This impressive display of unilateral mediation, diplomacy and lighting skills paid off. All LD's, television lighting directors, video camera operators and show producers went away happy and satisfied with their shows.
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Dave Gibbon comments that the Diamond III saved the day many a time in terms of fast programming. The schedule was so pressured that sometimes LD's only had 30 minutes to get a whole show down into the desk. They had to contend with the additional stress of it being a London showcase and full of management and record company executives.
 Dave set the
Diamond III up with 120 buskable Palette buttons so, running in 'Takeover' Mode, operators could grab any combination of colours or gobos, iris and positional combinations and mix-and-match. Ten different stage preset positions were set up which could also have timing or any fixture attributes or intensities added.
"The Diamond III was absolutely invaluable" commented Dave "We would never have been able to offer such a complex and comprehensive design package to all the LDs if we hadn't used it". |
| LD's and acts to play the Permier Awards included:- |
 | Feeder (LD Mark Video) |
| Embrace (LD Angus McFail) |
| Doves (LD Mikey Howard) |
| Ooberman (LD Towyn Roberts) |
| The Asian Dub Foundation (LD Pravin) |
| Regular Fries (Onka Narang) |
| Ash (Steve Brown) |
| Darren White (Terris) |
| Muses (Ollie Metcalfe) |
| Contempo and Sugur Ros (Chris Lehane) |
| Shack (LD Bryan leitch) |
| Les Rythmes Digitales (LD Rob Davies) |
| Elastica (LD Nick Jevons) |
| Campag Velocet (Ben Holdsworth). |
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The lighting crew working with Dave Gibbon were Dan Cook, Jennie Cauldwell and Niall Hannell who is also the Astoria's house technician.
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