Zig Zag Lighting is providing gear for jazz-pop singer/songwriter and multi-instrumentalist Jamie Cullum, on tour in the U.K. and Europe to support his recent album, The Pursuit. The lighting design by Hadyn Thomas uses a rig that includes Robe fixtures for all the moving lights. Thomas, who has used Robe gear since 2004, credited the brand for being "very reliable" and offering "plenty of creative options," including the ability to achieve the colors favored by show designer Mark Silver, whose set uses nylon rope to represent piano strings.
These were fabricated by Zig Zag with the oversized "piano strings" linked to a series of boxed winch sets. The bottom sections sit on the floor upstage, while the top sections are raised up to the trussing mother grid, pulling the ropes up with them, and tensioned when at trim height. LED lighting fixtures built into the boxes point upward, lighting the white strings from below.
The overall look of the show draws inspiration from the jazz record label Blue Note. Thomas kept the color mixes simple used beam effects sparingly, for a jazzy but not overly strident feel.
Above the stage on the mother grid are 12 Robe ColorWash 575E ATs and eight ColorSpot 700E ATs, used to achieve the saturated cyan, magenta and yellow mixes that are part of the show, along with classic primaries of blue and red.
In addition, there are four ColorSpot 575E ATs upstage on the mother grid and six on the floor across the back of the stage, used for backlighting the band and to silhouette Cullum on the projection screen upstage of the strings. They also move out into the audience at times for gobo effects.
On the front truss are four ColorSpot 700E ATs and another six ColorWash 575E ATs. These are for full stage washes and for picking out Cullum at the piano, the Rhodes keyboard and the various other stage positions he used during his energetic performance. Two house follow spots also help pick him out when he is on the move.
"It's fundamentally a jazz show, laced with some elements of rock ‘n' roll," said Thomas, who credited the ColorSpot 700E ATs for their animation wheels and the zoom range on the ColorWashes.
All the lighting is controlled via an Avolites Diamond 4 Elite. There is no set list and plenty of improvisation, so he has a pool of songs programmed and keeps on his toes during the show, although he can sometimes anticipate what's coming up next by Cullum's preamble.
The projection screen is also used for a camera mix and Catalyst media server playback, supplied by XL Video.
