Robe fixtures were an integral part of Selah Sue’s show – her lighting designer Joris Vandamme used 12 x ROBIN 600 LEDWashes on floor stands as a ‘specials’ package, an idea also being tried out for upcoming shows. He also used eight Robe MMX Spots that have just been installed as part of a new lighting rig at Het Depot along with Robe Actor 6 units.

Additionally, the first of Robe’s new MMX WashBeams in Belgium were made available for these Het Depot shows by special arrangement with Robe’s Benelux distributor, Controllux.

Selah Sue’s material embraces an eclectic mix of styles including soul, R’n’B, reggae and blues. Her rich, deep, raspy voice is very distinctive and she’s carved out a unique influential niche already, with her eponymous 2011 debut album being a massive success.

Sint-Niklaas-based Vandamme has designed Selah Sue’s lighting for the last two years, and he’s been using Robe products for about the same period. “They are very flexible, robust well-priced moving lights,” he comments.

The 12 LEDWash 600 ‘specials’ were rigged on four floor stands positioned asymmetrically around the stage. They were used for a whole miscellany of effects as well as for close-up washes on Selah Sue – who prefers minimal front lighting - and her four piece band.

Due to the quirky angles of the stands and the physically low levels of the lightsources as they swept dramatically across the stage, the whole space was bathed in intimacy.

The second song of the set on the first night was Amy Winehouse’s ‘Valerie’ for which Selah Sue stood directly in front of one of the lighting stands, subtly lit only by individual rings of the LEDWashes in a shimmering, flamey orange -  highly effective – and really hitting the tone of the song!

At other times as she assertively strutted the stage, the whole lighting mood changed constantly – taking it up and bringing it down in a pacey, highly theatrical performance.

Vandamme likes the light weight, the high output, the long zoom and “pretty much everything” about the LEDWash 600 and these fixtures will be at the core of the lighting technical rider for Selah Sue’s next tour.

He integrated Het Depot’s eight MMX Spots into his show. Having used them before at the Ancienne Belgique where they have also recently been added to the house rig, he likes all the same features – brightness, good gobos, excellent colour mixing and zoom.

With little rehearsal time and using the lights in-situ for the first time at Het Depot, it was only a short window in which to get familiar with the MMX WashBeams, but what he had seen and was able to do with them by that point he thought was “Amazing”.

The MMX WashBeam encompasses all the new technologies developed for the MMX Spot, offering a huge range of features and effects in one fixture. Utilising a Philips Platinum 35 light source coupled with Robe’s MMX optical system, it produces a light output exceeding most ‘traditional’ 1200 W products.

Vandamme underlines the good relationship with Bram De Clerck and his team from Controllux’s Belgian office who are very pro-active with service and product support. He had first seen the MMX WashBeams during PLASA and was keen to get them on demo, however he didn’t think the opportunity to actually try them out on a show would materialise quite so quickly!

He used a new Clarity LX 300 console from LSC to run lighting for the Het Depot shows, and the LEDWash 600s were supplied by local rental company, D-Events.