Edmond Deraedt has been a fan of Richard Thompson since he first heard his band, Fairport Convention, in 1991. "I have always considered him a musical genius," Deraedt says. He had the opportunity to light some of Thompson's solo acoustic concerts around the New York area and in California. In 2006, Thompson came to the Inter-Media Art Center in Long Island where Deraedt worked as the lighting director. "I paid close attention to the color and focus of each light in the rig for that concert," Deraedt said. "He was directing the lighting with his body language and I was able to read it. It was a great non-verbal collaboration."
After that show, Thompson hired Deraedt as the lighting designer and he has been touring with the Richard Thompson Band for the last four years. Tuce Yasak spoke to Deraedt about his work with the RTB, most recently for the U.S. tour to promote the Grammy-nominated album, Dream Attic.
PLSN: What was your directive from the band when you went to work for them?
Edmond Deraedt: On the first day of my first tour with RTB, Richard gave me carte blanche for total artistic expression by saying "Edmond, we are not the kind of band that worries about what we look like." I am responsible for all the visual elements. For instance, I designed the scenery for the recent tour, created video content and designed custom gobos.
How do you transform the inspiration coming from Richard Thompson's music into lighting?
Richard's music is very moody and textured. His lyrics are very deep and on the darker side. I have developed a specific look for Richard's complex and layered music. I lay down blankets of very saturated colors. I use one or two colors that come from opposing angles for each song. On top of that I layer down no color lighting, very tightly focused beams on the band members from extreme angles around the rig. This casts musicians' shadows and creates texture on them and the instruments. I mostly do not use front lighting. If I cannot see the faces of musicians, it really does not worry me. The textures that are created by the lighting angles, colors, the deep grooves of light and dark and the contrast of black and white match the depth of Richard Thompson's music. This look has not changed from album to album.
What about the constraints that you come across while touring? How do you realize your lighting concept within these constraints?
In the U.S. tour, we don't carry any lighting equipment. I have to rely on the venues completely. For low-budget touring, it is important to have a solid understanding of, and always keep in mind, the statements that I am attempting to make. I have developed a solid look for the band. I carry some gobos and even gobo holders – the custom gobos that I designed, the gels that I am attached to and I know that theatres do not stock, like Lee 707 (a deep purple) and my primary colors. These are all the simple tools that make the difference and aid me to express RTB's identity to audience and specific shows within limited budget, equipment and time in each venue. For instance, I can turn a theater's architecture into massive Celtic knotwork which is a unique RTB look with my custom gobos.
Can you tell us about the set design that you developed for the Dream Attic tour?
Richard's website has a nautical theme. Also, he always plays one or two sea shantie-type tunes in his set. So I created a set which is essentially the rigging of a pirate ship, including two rope ladders and four large canvas sails. As the venue expanded or contracted in size, I could hang just the rope ladders or sails individually. Because the sails are intentionally wrinkled and gathered and the rope has a rough texture, the set blended into the lighting and the shadowy, black-white, high contrast look of RTB. In addition to adding texture and shape to the show, the set really expanded the look on stage and added scope to this tour. Concerts in even small theaters that have only two or three electrics, a few dozen fixtures looked like a larger production with the help of this set.
RTB performed in nearly 30 venues during this 40-day tour. Can you compare these various venues technically?
Some of these are small theaters with 30 or 40 lights where I aimed to get the best focus and most purpose out of each light. Some are performing arts centers with 200 to 300 fixtures where I have to be instantly creative and manage the time and the crew very well to achieve my goals. Most of these venues have also moving lights and LED packages at various sizes that I used mostly for the scenery.
For instance, at the Tennessee Performing Arts Center in Nashville, I had an ETC Eos and 250 conventional fixtures. At Cain's Ballroom in Tulsa, Oklahoma, there were only 40 PAR 64s and a mirror ball. There were red neon stars surrounding the mirror ball and on the walls of the ballroom. I kept them on for nostalgia's sake.
At The Pabst Theater in Milwaukee, we had a wonderful conventional rig and a dozen Vari*Lite moving lights. Town Hall in New York City is a very small stage with a dozen ellipsoidals, six ETC Source Four PARs, and four box boom positions with four or five fixtures on each. In this venue, I created one look for the entire show. I set the stage like a living room with very warm and intimate lighting that bled out through the house. It was very like "an intimate evening with Richard."
During one of the previous tours, there were only six lights in a theatre in Kentucky. I bought every floor and table lamp that I could find in second hand stores in the Lexington area. I surrounded the whole stage with these lamps. Also, I had found A lamps in ceramic bases screwed to pieces of plywood in a corner of the backstage and I wired them up to create a sort of ground row for the Austrian drape which hung upstage of the band. The entire evening had a wonderful cabaret feel.
How much time did you have in each venue?
I had four hours in each venue for everything including loading in, hanging the set, focusing, programming all moving lights and LED fixtures, creating looks and effects and writing cues. This can be challenging at times, especially when we had five or six gigs in a row combined with overnight drives, though I have a general idea of how to use all the varying types of rigs that we come across to achieve the RTB look.
Moving lights are used for template washes on the band or the color washes for the set. For movement, I use gobo chases on the stage, which emanates from Richard and spreads across the band, up the scenery and the theatre walls as a constant roll. I use very slow gobo washes that scan the stage.
I am very picky about my overhead ellipsoidal, and how I use them defines how I light the band for the show. I focus my broad strokes first in order of color systems, template systems, overhead specials. I sometimes might choose not to use one third or half of the rig, depending on how much time I have. But if I don't touch some of the lights during focus, before I start programming I bounce through all systems to see if there is something that happens to be interesting that I can use from the rep focus. Some of my basic systems were born from serendipity this way.
I always set up my conventional lights in exactly the same way on the console, no matter if it s a Leprecon, ETC, or any other board. I know which hammer is for which light.
I write the most important statements with my moving lights first. After this, I write my effects. Finally, I load the cue structure and times.
I program every show from scratch uniquely and take inspiration from each venue. My experience as a master electrician and electrician for off-Broadway and corporate events in New York helps me a lot and saves time. I can communicate with the head electrician well, make applicable design decisions and troubleshoot technical problems like making a broken rig work, which does happen from time to time.
Finally, what are your highlights from Dream Attic Tour?
My favorite show of this year was the Milwaukee concert. The band was on fire. I had all the tools I needed to make large statements that fit to the musical statements. The whole show had many serendipitous moments. There were some other special moments all through the tour. In Atlanta, I used the house set, which really worked well and looked great. At the Boulder Theater in Colorado, I layered my set against the cyc and played with cyc color that was one of the best looks of the tour for the set. In Wilmington, Delaware the theatre had an excellent conventional rig. I used lighting from various directions on the set -from back, sides, up and front. Each venue had a little something special, and thankfully I was able to tap into all of these and make 30 unique shows for the band.
