ADLIB Lighting supplied lighting and video equipment for Enter Shikari's recent Incendiary Tour - featuring their largest production to date.

The hyperactive St Albans based 4-piece's energized amalgam of edgy, raw hardcore and punky techno took the UK by storm with their very animated performances.

ADLIB Lighting has been involved with Enter Shikari right from the start seeing their popularity and cult status explode onto the UK indie music scene. ADLIB's John Hughes says "Ian Tomlinson and I met the band back in January when they were playing relatively small venues. We have assisted them since in steadily growing the visual side of their performance and our relationship with the band has grown throughout the year. It's great to be involved with one of 2007's most exciting live acts and see the acclaim they're now receiving".

Enter Shikari's original lighting design was created by ADLIB's Ian Tomlinson who has also worked with the band since they first started thinking seriously about lighting, visuals and production.

However due to prior commitments with Mika (which ADLIB Lighting is also servicing) Ian was unable to do this tour, ADLIB asked Dave Ross (LD for Scissor Sisters, Royksopp, etc) onboard to take the show on the road which has also proved a great success.

"The band have very precise ideas about video and lighting" elucidates Ross, which they discuss with him, whilst also leaving him to his own creative devices. The furiously paced show naturally lends itself to large amounts of strobe and flash overkill, but the high element of theatre also allowed Ross to introduce structure and subtleties into the chaos!

In terms of lighting kit, the standard touring system consisted of 9 Martin Professional MAC 2000 Spot moving lights and 12 High End Studio Beams for the wash units, along with 4 JTE PixelPARs, 4 bars of ACLs, 8 Martin Atomic strobes and 10 4-lite DWE strips.

The back truss featured 5 MAC 2Ks, while the front was rigged with 4 Studio Beams providing a front wash, but other than that, most of the rig was floor based which suited the nature and vigour of the performance.

There is also plenty of audience interaction to an Enter Shikari show, so 10 4-lite DWE strips were scattered over the rig including being attached to all the various pieces of metalwork to highlight the participation.

Onstage were 4 vertical 8ft sections of truss, each rigged with 2 additional Studio Beams, a 4-lite and an Atomic. The upstage two also each featured a bar of PAR 64 ACLs.

Two 10 ft downstage booms helped shoot light across the front of the stage and in front of the monitor line, an area used extensively by the band as they tear up and down. Each of these booms had a bar of ACLs and two 4-lites at the front.

The lighting count was rounded off with 4 PAR 64 floor cans with CP61 bulbs.

All of this was operated by Ross using a Hog iPC console.

Assisting Dave Ross was ADLIB's Tim Spilman (System Tech) and Dave Eldridge (Apprentice Tech).

Adlib Lighting's Manager Peter Abraham says, "I'm very happy I was able to send Dave Eldridge out on this tour as he will pick up a lot of valuable skills from Tim, Dave and Gary who all have vast experience in the touring world. We are very grateful to tour manager James Clayton for allowing young Dave to work on the tour giving him valuable experience. At Adlib we are always very keen to take advantage of every opportunity to train our up-and-coming technicians to Adlib's exacting standards".

When it came to video, ADLIB approached Birmingham based Show Support to be their visual partners for the tour. "We set up a good deal and we were very impressed with Show Support's enthusiasm," comments Hughes.

"Show Support's Rich Rowley adds, "We were really happy to collaborate with ADLIB on this project. Show Support is very keen to work with inspiring up-and-coming bands, and there's a great synergy between us and ADLIB".

Show Support supplied Barco G8 projectors which were rigged on the front truss projecting onto a centrally hung 16 x 12 ft Stumpfl screen. At larger venues a pair of projectors were deployed and overlaid to maximise the image brightness. Cameras used were 4 x Sony XC-555P lipstick cameras, anchored at various points onstage.

This was taken care of by Show Support's video engineer Gary Twigg. The band added their own wireless camera into the video melee, feeds from which were mixed along with the other 3 cameras by Twigg using a Panasonic MX 70. All this was sent to High End Catalyst digital media server - supplied by ADLIB  - being controlled by Dave Ross, and output to the screen by him via the lighting desk, along with playback footage supplied by the band.

The band take a keen interest in the video content, so they commissioned a colleague to produce all the footage which was loaded onto the Catalyst. This included graphics, song lyrics, wallpaper and ambient type effects plus a series of mini films .... all adding to the dynamic maelstrom of loudness, thrashy techno and visual energy that makes the pure Enter Shikari magic.