PHOTO : STEVIE RAE GIBBS PHOTO : ROBERT KENNEDY , SOLOTECH
COLDPLAY ’ S 2022 MUSIC OF SPHERES TOUR
THE WEEKND ’ S 2022 AFTER HOURS TIL DAWN TOUR
and mourn our friends or we can carry on with the tour .” And he then said to me , “ Do you want to take over from Colin ?” who had died just the night before . I was the lighting guy and next thing you know , I ’ m flying around with all these superstars .
But being from the world that I grew up in , I think it set me up for that . I ’ d been living in that world and didn ’ t really care . To be honest with you , I didn ’ t even really know who George Harrison was . I was very into heavy music and never into The Beatles . But next thing you know , I ’ m looking after George . He had his own personal guy , but as a band , I was the manager . It was amazing ; great times .
PS : You later co-owned Lighting & Sound Design ( LSD ), which got bought by PRG , and you just moved forward in executive roles on the live production side of the industry with TAIT then Solotech . Why
32 PROFESSIONAL SOUND
didn ’ t you stay in lighting design or that side of things ?
Curbishley : Honestly , I was no good . I tried to use a board , like when there ’ d be the support band and they ’ re like , “ Does someone want to do the board ?” My timing is great , I can play the drums and stuff like that , but the lighting board was not for me . I just didn ’ t have any connection with it .
Also , there ’ s a lot of timing and luck involved in it . LSD built the first moving light other than the Starlight , which I was part of , as well , at Tasco in my early days . But they brought the Icon onto the scene and at that point , I was with Vari-Lite . I was married and I tried to get off the road and I thought I ’ d take an office job and it was really difficult . It was a very difficult transition and , honestly , the position I ’ m in now , we try that all the time and I ’ m so sympathetic to people that are used to being on the road when they come in to work with us . For me , it was a really tough transition . But yeah , the timing was excellent .
So , Nick Jackson , Terry Lee , and all the LSD guys , I ’ d known them since I was 16 or 17 and they had sold their company to Christian Salvesen , who were frozen foods distributor — god knows why they bought LSD . Anyway , they very quickly realized that was a mistake and Nick Jackson and me were out drinking one night and he said , “ You should come and join us and open a London office . We ’ re going to buy the company back from the owner .” So , I was only 29 or 30 at that time . I don ’ t think I even realized the gravity of what we were doing . Because I was so young , I was just like , “ Yeah , let ’ s do it ! What could possibly go wrong ?” I borrowed some money from my dad and we all scraped up what we could and threw it all in the pot . Basically , Nick Jackson negotiated to buy the company back and all of a sudden , I ’ m now an owner of LSD at the age of 30 . I opened LSD London with a bunch of really amazing people and we picked up so much amazing touring work . It was during that period where Oasis were massive and it was a real amazing time in English music . So many great bands , and we were just on fire and it was a fantastic time .
The next thing you know , Jere Harris came along from PRG and he had a vision of buying all these companies and putting them together and we were the first big player that he bought . I think he learned a lot from that , as well , because that was a baptism of fire . He wasn ’ t used to that rock and roll world that we brought in .
Anyway , you ’ ve got to keep me on track because I could go on for hours about this ! [ laughs ] It ’ s been a long career , from 16 to 56 years old . It ’ s been a long , long time since I thought about some of this . There ’ s 40 years of this stuff and it ’ s very rare that I go through it in my mind , chronologically , and try to work it out .
PS : One specific Solotech tour I wanted to ask about is Coldplay ’ s current Music of Spheres Tour , because of the much-publicized efforts to reduce the tour ’ s environmental footprint . Have you been paying much attention to that tour as it progresses and do you think it ’ ll influence the broader large-scale touring industry ?
Curbishley : Firstly , I just like to say , well done to them to even just bring attention to it . It ’ s such a challenging thing . We bring so much joy and happiness , but there ’ s so much disruption , as well , and I ’ m very conscious of it … We ’ ve got a long way to go , but because we do so much damage , any little improvement makes a big difference . So , for Coldplay , for them to just bring the attention to it and focus on it and try against all the odds , I don ’ t know what they ’ ve achieved , but I know they ’ re getting people ’ s attention and drawing attention to it because we have to change .