Way back in 1982(ish), I came to the conclusion that I was not going to be anybody's gift to the music world after struggling to master the basics of my left-handed Burns guitar, only to find my little brother (Rob) was better than me after about 2 weeks playing it upside down! At about this point I decided to give up any thoughts of Rock stardom. As Rob was interested in much the same kind of music as me I naturally followed his antics in putting together bands and things at school, showing a passing interest in Stride and attending a few of the early gigs.

I have always been impressed by a few coloured lights and my overall impression of Stride's gigs was how much better they would be with some sort of lighting. I also saw them in a pub called The Northern in Brighton, supporting a band who did have lights - something unheard of in a pub then and even now rarer than a very rare thing. I quickly realised that buying a half-decent lighting system would be excruciatingly expensive so, having asked Rob if he would fancy the idea of lights (and finding that he is also unfeasibly impressed by them), I set about building a very basic lighting rig. The other band, who's name escapes me, had simply nailed a few ordinary light bulbs to a bit of wood so I thought I'd go one better and put Spotlights into individual boxes - and so the Stride lighting rig was born. Initially it consisted of 3 boxes of 4 100 Watt Spots, making a massive 1200 Watts of Blue, Red and/or Yellow light (4 of each). I decided that I wanted to be able to control the lights so I set it up with switches for standing lighting and buttons so I could "flash" or change the setup at will and follow the rhythm of the songs. Not much has changed between then and now, except the control box and the size of the system. Originally I used a series of Doorbell push buttons and looking back on it I am amazed that I didn't electrocute myself!

It all worked reasonably well and didn't need much maintenance and I did a few gigs with Stride before they imploded. Dibble's Beat also liked the idea of lights so I used them occasionally for their gigs as well. All that was required was a change of name on the boxes. If you look carefully you can still see the names of all the different bands on those original 3 boxes - which I still use to this day.

Once Empyr appeared in 1991, with their Stadium Rock leanings, I decided that a few more lights were required and after an abortive attempt at producing some rather Spinal Tap'esque backdrops I ended up with a couple of new boxes and another control unit. This required more fingers than I possess so I enlisted the assistance of a friend, Gary Christian to help me out. We did most of Empyr's gigs as long as they weren't playing anywhere larger than about 10 ft square. The lighting rig had grown to 1800 Watts by now but if even the smallest light bulb was left on in the vicinity the lights were pointless. The band ended up playing in darkened halls and dingy pubs - the darker the better from my point of view.

After struggling with the 2 control boxes for a while, another friend, Stuart Annis, offered to build me a better one. I think he was concerned for my health as the originals were largely constructed from Hardboard and were beginning to soak up the Lager, which was continually being spilt on and around them. Stuart and I had a chat about what I wanted it to do and he went away. A couple of months later he returned with the control unit which I still use and masses of replacement cabling which he had managed to obtain by various devious means. The control unit is a super piece of engineering and has been virtually trouble-free for about 8 years. Along with Gary, Stuart became the other founder member of CCA Lighting and we added some more lights and carted it all around the immediate area for a while. By 1993 I had about 2200 Watts of light at my disposal so the band were able to play in slightly brighter environs. I did have to concede defeat when Empyr played several shows in the main hall at Clair Hall in Haywards Heath, using the enormous house lighting setup with smoke, lasers, the full works. Eventually the band split up, Rob went off to try his hand at being a professional and the lights ended up under a tarpaulin in Gary's back garden. I still haven't really forgiven him for that.

When Rob put together Sonic Oblivion in 1997, all three band members proved to be lightshow fans and Rob asked if I fancied resurrecting the lights. I thought that sounded feasible so I got them back from Gary, only to discover, to my horror, that the metal box that the control unit was in had 2 inches of water in it! It was with some trepidation and not much hope of success that, after a week or so of having various bits dotted around my living room drying out, I put it all back together and switched it on. It is an eternal testament to Stuart's electrical and engineering genius that it all still worked. Once I'd cleaned out all the cobwebs and obscure things that looked like nests of some sort I set about refurbishing it all. The modular design of the system allows for some expansion so while I was rebuilding a couple of the boxes I made everything even more modular and added more lights.

I am currently in the process of adding "effects", as I have reached the limit of what I can add on the lighting side of things on a single 13 Amp plug. Even now, if I had everything on at once it would all explode so I have to be a bit careful. At present I've got 800 Watts of Red, 800 Watts of Blue, 400 Watts of Yellow, 960 Watts of Green and 1600 Watts of White, making a total of 4560 Watts. IÕm no electrician but I believe if you divide Watts by Volts you get Amps, which means that if everything was on it would be drawing nearly 18 Amps - or something. Anyway, I've just got Smoke, I'm working on how to incorporate a couple of graphic lasers and strobes and I'm thinking of some other things I might try. The rig is all still largely based on the original design with boxes laid out on the floor in front and to the side of the band, with a couple of boxes of white spots, used sparingly for effect, sitting behind the drums. Due to space constraints at most of the venues (and partly because of the cost involved) I have chosen not to put the lights up on stands. In an ideal world high-level lighting would be preferable, but at the moment it all stays on the ground (or a nearby table/chair/box). I still use 60 or 100 Watt R80 spots and in fact one of the Reds and one of the Blues are still the original lamps from the first setup which I created in 1982! I am well aware that people come to watch the band not the lightshow, but I like to think that I can add some atmosphere to the gig - make it more of a "show" if you like - and the band seem to enjoy my efforts.

I try to get to as many of the gigs as possible but there are a couple where I simply can't fit the lights in -notably The Six Bells in Chiddingly (although I'm going to have to at least give it a try one day). Of the "regular" venues, The Prince Albert in Eastbourne, The King's Head in Burgess Hill and The Firecracker And Firkin in Crawley are where you will be most likely to see the full lightshow, should you feel the need.