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The Bright Stuff

Guy Smith Lights Up The Night

In the right light, at the right time, everything is extraordinary. -artist Aaron Rose

Written by D. Michael Taylor

For many years, a delicate dance has occurred on the floors of major events all over the world. Light and sound come together to elevate your experience to a magical place, a synthesis of the senses when music and lighting become one. It’s not easily achieved, and done correctly you probably won’t even notice all the work and skill that goes into it. DJs tend to lead in this dance, since we are more conscious of their contribution to the proceedings. But without the right lights, the music can’t fully achieve that three-dimensional maelstrom of emotion and drama that we crave as discerning party people.

Anyone who has attended major Circuit events in the past 20 years has probably seen the work of one of the true masters of this craft, Guy Smith. This maestro has lit blue-ribbon dance events, stadium-level concerts, and corporate shindigs. As a psych major at Brandeis University in the ‘80s, Smith became fascinated with the human brain and how it experiences the world around it. His work as a detox counselor gave him a respect for drugs and the fact that they can lead to self-destruction and even death. Nevertheless, the impulse to reach higher states of awareness and communion with one another is obviously a powerful one that can help people as well, and in that sense he has never stopped being a student of human psychology. But he also loves to tinker with things, to pull stuff apart and figure out how it works. All that contributes to his craft.
It was at the gay club City in Boston (later Avalon) that he saw the light, as it were: “I had never seen moving lights in a show before. When I walked in and saw this whole lyrical experience going on I had to know how it worked.” The next morning, he marched into the club and announced, “I’d like to do lighting here.” For $6 an hour, he lit Avalon at night while working as a psychiatric counselor during the day. Finally, in 1995, he dedicated himself to lighting full time.
Since then, he has planned and worked lights at the Saint at Large’s Black Party, as well as New York’s massive Pier Dance and Alegria, the Pines Party on Fire Island, and Wonderland in L.A. He’s worked concerts for heavy hitters such as Jewel, Shakira, Justin Timberlake, Cyndi Lauper and Missy Elliot. Corporate events such as a Bulgari jewelry launch with Kanye West give him a chance to create more intimate settings. He even dabbles as a DJ occasionally. He is particularly proud of the work he does for non-profits such as the Komen Cancer and Michael J. Fox Foundations.

The Psychology of Lighting

His psychology background makes him particularly attuned to the way that lights and music can work together to create powerful experiences for the observer. “We don’t really know why, but certain colors and forms are associated by the human psychology with certain emotions,” he points out. “There’s even a psychological disorder where people ‘hear color’ or they ‘see music.’ It’s also something that happens when you’re on hallucinogens.”
Smith believes in the power of the dance experience for our community. “Gay people go to Circuit parties like Baptists go to church,” he says. “You’re in a nightclub, which is a lot like being in a cathedral, which is also a lot like being in a cave around a fire. And you’re all trying to reach some form of altered state, which is something that has been going on for 10,000 years, in order to experience a certain oneness with each other.”

A consummate perfectionist, Smith works with all manner of heavy-duty lighting equipment, old and new, and the boards and computers that make it all come together. He has been known to climb to the rafters on a rickety ladder if even one of the hundreds of pieces of the puzzle he created isn’t working correctly. He likes to use every brush at his disposal to paint swirling colors on bodies, walls, and smoke. “I have to give them something to physically look at,” he explains. “It can’t just be a bunch of random lights. It has to have a center of focus, some symmetry—or asymmetry, but if it’s asymmetry it’s got to be intentional.”

Crisis Management

So how closely does he work with the DJ? He emphasizes that he’s become very good friends with many of the big names over the years—but they don’t necessarily coordinate their nights together beforehand. “A lot of the DJs and I have worked together a lot, and we sort of play games with each other. They know how I work and I know how they work, and they try to surprise me. They’ll glance over and give me a funny look, like ‘This one’s for you.’”

As with any job, things can and do go wrong. Smith vividly recalls Masterbeat’s 2006 New Year’s Eve party. Deborah Cox had just performed and it was just past midnight, so the party was settling into its groove. Suddenly at 1:30 a.m., the lights sputtered and then died completely. This is a not-uncommon disaster. He rushed out to the massive semi-trailer that housed the generator, where he found his production manager standing next to it scratching his head. Smith quickly discovered the problem: The gauge needle had been stuck; the generator was out of gas. Smith grabbed as many gas-like containers as he could find and found a service station with diesel fuel.

He gave Manny Lehman the thumbs up, who cranked the music for a dramatic explosion. Reaching peak buildup, Smith threw the lights back on to thunderous applause, and the boys happily partied through the rest of the night. Later that morning, people complimented Smith on the amazing “dark period” he gave them. He just smiled and thanked them.

Smith embodies the Circuit ideal of finding your own life groove and making it work for you. His professionalism and pride in his craft are matched by a respect for the community he works with and its gratitude for being able to do what he loves most. This is a man who has taken his insights about the mind and its innate desire to experience the world around it in exciting and mysterious ways and translated them into a moveable, transient art. Next time you’re lost in a whirlwind of color and sound, look up to the lighting booth and give the technician a wave of thanks and recognition. He’s been up there dancing with you for years.

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