The state of Manipur in North-East part of India is rich with folk traditions and music. But the region is also greatly influenced by western music and has a long musical history with rock music. At present to attract tourism through culture and music, the Manipur State Government in association with the Manipur Tourism Department has been organizing Shirui Lily Festival for the past 2 years with the annual international rock festival- ShiRock music festival. ShiRock 2017 and 2018 have been a huge success with a turnout of 30-40K people every day.
American heavy metal band Queensryche headlined ShiRock 2018. This year, the festival was held from 16th October to 19th October 2019. The government sponsored ticket-free music festival has grown much bigger in 2019 and the audience witnessed two legendary classic rock bands –Nazareth and Extreme.
Guru Somayaji, a Bangalore based Lighting designer was entrusted with handling ShiRock second year in row. Guru is a freelance lighting designer from Bangalore, India. He is the touring Lighting engineer for The Local Train, When Chai Met Toast, Skrat and Parekh & Singh. When he is not designing and operating lighting rigs, he is a cook, an avid terrace gardener and a beer connoisseur of sorts. This year, Guru used a grandMA3 light console to run lighting for Extreme’s performance at ShiRock 2019. ‘More Than Words’, ‘Decadence Dance’, ‘Get The Funk Out ‘, ‘Tragic Comic’ and many other chartbusting compositions by Extreme are popular among their fans , globally. Guru explained his planning for the festival’s lighting design. “The design ideology was keeping in mind early 90’s Rock concert rigs. The LED Par Cans were retrofitted on pipes to make them look like ACL Bars. Lots of Par Cans were fanned out to give an ACL Bar Look. Blinders were of course used aplenty to provide for grand sing along moments. We also shipped in 5X5 Matrix lights to ensure we had met Extreme’s lighting rider. Apart from meeting Extreme’s requirements, I also had to ensure all the participants of the prestigious ShiRock ‘Battle of the bands’ and the ‘voice’ competition had to look at their best.” He continues, “The entire design was conceptualised on Grand MA2 on PC Command Wing & MA3D. I used the latest version of 3.7.0.5. Primary drawings were made on Claude Heintz Design’s LX Software”.
The technical support of MA is highly appreciated across the globe. Be it at any part of the world, MA never compromises its benchmark support. Guru also shared the challenges prior to the show. “Ukhrul is technically a very challenging location to produce any concert. Though, the entire state machinery is involved in producing this event, logistics is always a challenge, which I always strive to work with.” Audio Systems MA Product Manager /Tech Support Engineer Kakkaroda Ajay Teja from Hi-Tech Audio Systems stepped in to help with the overall logistics of shipping the MA console and programme the show for Extreme’s Lighting Designer Martin Favourite. Guru continued, “Ajay provided his technical expertise in making the MA air cargo ready. Ajay’s onsite tech support was a huge relief, especially in a place as remote as Ukhrul. His presence also made Martin at ease from shifting his regular preferred console to using MA console for Extreme. With Ajay’s experience in training people on MA software, he had Martin setup and show ready in super quick time.” Hi-Tech Audio Systems are the Authorized grandMA consoles supplier in India.
“Martin Favourite loved the work-flow of MA. I made him familiar with the console and during the show I, helped him with the programming. It was indeed a moment of pride for me to work with Mr. Martin, one of the global icons in lighting industry. I bet we managed to rock ShiRock with extreme fun and head-banging moments”, concludes Ajay Teja.