The Early Years
After four years as an enthusiastic and dedicated amateur at University, with its strong ties to the early Rave ..and also the local crusty folk-rock scene - in North Wales, Richard without declined the career he was offered as a project manager in the defence industry for the insecurity of being a freelancer in the entertainment industry. He found sleeping on cold stages being paid in bread and beer more interesting, although financially dubious.
This decision proved to be a good one, and the pay increased. Well, it couldn’t really decrease. His first year continued along the same lines, except scalled-up. Early shows were often large-scale all-night raves at legendary venues such as the Sanctuary in Milton Keynes. These shows were awash with the then new-fangled moving-lights with which Richard was deeply infatuated, seeing their serious and artisic uses beyond the flash’n’trash and unreliability most others did at that point. He established himself as an expert in the use of ground-breaking units such as the Golden Scan 3, VL-5/6, NAT, Cyberlight, and later the Mac-500 & 600. And also using the revolutionary new digital control systems that abstractred the controls from their phyiscial values, cheifly the WholeHog II, ScanCommander (predecessor to the GrandMA) and then later the Compulite Sabre and Vector.
Early Goals
Everyone should have goals when they start-out, apparently. So as the great adventure into the unknown started, he was put on the spot on his first day:
Q. What Will Be the Biggest Venue and Person You Will Have Lit in 10 Years Time?
A. Wembley and… Madonna!
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<p>Ok, so it was actually the *Wembley Exhibtion & Conference Center*, not *Wembley Arena* (which has been lit by Richard a good few times) and adjacent to but definataly NOT the famous *Wembley Stadium* which is what he actually meant to say, but didn't. Still not done it. Precision is everything.... But still : *10,000 punters and goal achieved 9,5 years early.*.</p>
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<img src="/images/VeryOldShows/Wembley/WembleyOld.png" alt="Right" class="w-full h-auto" title="The old Stadim" webp="false">
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Madonna, on the other hand, took 11 years. But not in a Stadium, in a nightclub (for a promo video) and a festival garden (being interview)
### OK, we're not setting goals any more!
Which is just as well, beacuse any further goals that might then have been set would probably have been way off, as direction of travel changed many times in those early years. But, long-term, many achivements that he would never have dreamed-of happened instead - taking him to places, situations, and meeting people from the very top to the very bottom. And a lot of people talking about football. A LOT of people.
Anyway, we’re getting ahead of ourselves.
Here are some of things that happened that can be talked about.
And aren’t, mostly, football.
At some point in this year, did The Prodigy for the third time. Although, due to an staffing problem, rather bizarrely Richard ended-up doing their FOH sound instead of the lights. P
WHat else happened in this early period after going “Pro”?
Quite a bit of time was spent touring round Europe, mostly Germany, and an amazing month in Vienna as the snow melted.
Through a very complicated story involving the early Internet, Richard ended-up working for High End Systems After about a year spent touring round Europe, inclusing a momorabl;e Several years were spent touring and working around the Europe and everywhere from the USA 🇺🇸 to the Ukraine 🇺🇦 !
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