8th Jan 2004 - Raw Lighting Power choose Mambo Frog for 37 gig US tour.

Cradle of Filth stems from Ipswich in the UK and has been touring and recording for the past eleven years. They play what is coined “Black Metal” and with song titles like 'Chewing Your Guts', 'Once Upon Atrocity' and 'Presents From The Poison-Hearted' it’s not difficult to conjure up an image. Robert Bell met up with them in Torronto on the last gig of their six-week 'Bleeding Across America' tour to talk to Richard Wolfgang, principal and owner of RAW Lighting Power, about the Mambo Frog and how it performed out on the road.

Before taking on the role as the band’s LD, Rich used to rig for Filth when their original lighting designer disappeared. Rich has been using Zero 88 desks for ages and RAW owns five variations in the Frog line. He chose the Mambo Frog for this tour, “Because it has a smaller footprint and all the features of the bigger desks” says Wolfgang.

He is touring Filth with 12 Mad Scan 511’s and 4 Mad Colour Changers and compliments the rig with whatever the house has to offer and controls it all with the Frog. On this occasion, there were 12 additional HES Technobeams, 36K of parcans and some ACL’s. The off-line editing software runs great on Rich’s laptop and allows him to build moving light personalities on the fly if need be. This feature is really handy when you’re touring from club to club and you never quite know what’s around the corner.

The ability to split moving light attributes and gain instant access to all the fixtures is a real plus of the system. The show is based around 12 positions and 12 chases split across multiple stacks. The band met with the Rich to determine the colour palette for the show to reflect the album cover, which this time is mostly orange. He then uses the Frog’s banks of 12 SX buttons to call up different stage looks or he’ll grab the lights live and manipulates them with the ellipse generator – a real time saver. Basing his show around these fundamental building blocks, Rich can get his show up and running quickly. While in Vegas, the club had quite a stacked house rig, so Rich left his lights in the truck, pulled out his desk and just plugged it in. Within an hour, he had his focus done and was ready for the show.

This 37-date tour has been mostly in clubs and smaller halls. The last European tour saw the band playing to packed houses of three to five thousand faithful followers while Rich has also toured with them through Australia and Japan. While on tour, Rich appreciates the phenomenal technical support he receives from Zero 88. On more than one occasion he’s called Keith Rogers at home base with questions or quandaries and always gets a prompt reply.

As the tour wraps up, Richard is looking forward to going home to catch up with his girlfriend who has been holding down the fort at RAW Lighting Power and LD’ing on another RAW event with a Frog on 'A Night At the Musical'.

Information and images supplied courtesy of Robert Bell, Shock Lighting. (rob@shocklighting.com)

Frog consoles supplied by Stage Electrics Ltd.