Paul Smith Smashing Buttons

Paul Smith at work.

If you like technology, you'll love Ed Sheeran's show. Yes, I'm aware that Sheeran's fans are primarily young females, but I don't care. I think he writes great songs with great music and he sings like a choir of angels. Part of the reason is his loop pedal that he works like a magician. But what really tied it together for me was the combination of lighting and video.

At times, the show was quiet as a church service and at times it was a cacophony of percussion, strings, and vocals. The crazy thing is that there was only one person on stage, unless you count Sheeran's loop pedal, which he used to build songs live on stage. Technology, in the right hands, can be pure magic, and that's what it felt like when Smith's lighting and video helped heighten the experience and amplify the event. Although much of the show is pre-programmed into his MA Lighting grandMA2, Sheeran's antics on stage are often improvised, meaning that Smith plays along anticipating every pedal stomp and pawing of Sheeran's 23" guitar, which he does to perfection. Despite some lag time from the Vari-Lite 880s, his timing is impeccable.

A big part of the show is the video backdrop, which is made up of 1-meter LED panels driven by two Green Hippo Hippotizer media servers (one live and one backup). In the show I saw at Stubb's in Austin, only part of the rig could fit in the venue, and Smith warned me that some of the video might not make sense. But what made perfect sense was the way the lighting and video blended seamlessly and punctuated the music with bursts of Atomic 3K strobes situated behind the semi-transparent panels. 

It's a technologically-rich show, with powerful music and powerful imagery that fits together like a hand in a glove. And some of the best imagery comes from very simple looks using tricks like asymmetry, stark contrast, and great timing. During one song, the black and white video perfectly complemented the beams of white light and stood apart from the bright colors in the rest of the set. One of the best parts of the show comes when Sheeran asks the audience to turn on the lights on their cell phones and hold them up. Smith takes the lights to black and Sheeran stands on stage bathed in cell phone light, which resembles soft moonlight. It's a clever gag.

Paul Smith has been running lights for over 20 years and he does it with skill and class. His show is smooth as glass punctuated with the occasional flash and trash where required, but it's always in harmony with what's going on on the stage. 

Ed Sheeran on stage lit by nothing but cell phones from the audience.