Nathan Carter tours with ADJ lighting
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Born and raised in Liverpool by a family that originated from the city of Newry in County Down, music has always been a part of Nathan Carter’s life. After spending his youth traveling to Ireland to compete in the Fleadh Ceoil singing competitions as well as playing accordion and piano in a Liverpool-based Ceili band, he moved across the Irish sea at the age of 18 to pursue a fulltime career in music.
Over the following decade, Nathan has honed a distinctive sound that draws together country, Celtic and pop influences. He has released 11 studio albums, four of which topped the Irish national chart, and won legions of fans throughout Ireland, the UK and around the world. Since 2014, Nathan’s longstanding production manager and lighting designer, Derek Reilly, has been along for the ride.
“I’ve seen the demand for Nathan’s live shows grow consistently over the six years that I’ve been on the road with him,” comments Derek. “Back when I started, we were in small theatres but now the promoter is booking much larger venues and we’re often seeing them sell out. Over the last few years, Nathan’s popularity over here in England, and particularly up in Scotland, has really taken off. We now do more shows away from Ireland that we do local shows back home.”
With extensive experience of life on the road, Derek worked on a number of Irish tours before taking a job with a staging fabrication company. When the company was contracted to provide a set for a run of Nathan Carter shows Derek was sent to build and maintain it on the road, where he developed a strong relationship with the touring crew, band and Nathan himself. At the end of the contract Nathan invited Derek to join his permanent touring crew and he is now the longest serving crew member.
ADJ’s Vizi Beam 5RX has been a staple of Derek’s lighting designs for Nathan for the past four years. Throughout the show these are used to create a wide variety of looks, including mid-air effects above the band and beams that shoot out over the heads of the audience.
“We’ve had the Vizi Beam 5RXs out on the road for around four years and I’d say they are as good now as the day we got them. They are really reliable, I’ve honestly never had a problem with them.”
The color wash on stage is generated by 10 Rayzor Q7s from ADJ’s sister company Elation Professional. They are generally used as static washes to create a curtain of coloured light over which the dynamic aerial effects of the Vizi Beam 5RXs are laid.
To add impact to certain points within the show, four of ADJ’s Fog Fury Jett Pro units are lined across the front of the stage.
As this was exclusively a theatre tour, Derek utilized the front of house stage lighting already installed in each venue. However, when Nathan plays in venues that don’t have these fixtures readily available, Derek makes use of ADJ’s Encore FR150Z and Encore FR50Z LED-powered Fresnels.
“Kris [Dawber] and Andy [Howarth] at ADJ UK have really looked after me,” Derek states, “not that I’ve ever really had problems with any of the ADJ fixtures. Last year a fuse did go in one of the Vizi Beams and one of the crew broke the housing when replacing it - a very simple thing, but ADJ got it fixed for me very quickly.”
(Jim Evans)
