Lighting Up the Rock World with Lighting Designer/Director Cosmo Wilson
Charles B. "Cosmo" Wilson is an American concert lighting designer and director for rock bands, active since 1986. He has worked with over 40 acts including The Rolling Stones, Aerosmith, AC/DC, Black Sabbath, Emerson Lake & Palmer, Foreigner, INXS, Iron Maiden, Judas Priest, Meat Loaf, Mötley Crüe, Ronnie James Dio, David Lee Roth, Scorpions, and Rod Stewart. He was a touring road crew member from 1986 and toured with The Cure, Genesis, Barbara Mandrell, INXS, Crowded House, and various other acts before becoming a director and designer. He worked on the Rolling Stones "Steel Wheels" tour as lighting crew chief before moving up to lighting director, where he spent the next 7 months touring Japan and Europe with both "Urban Jungle" and "Steel Wheels" shows. He has worked with AC/DC since 1990, directing over 700 shows since then, including 1991's "Monsters of Rock" stadium tour, which finished in Moscow where it was estimated that there were over 1.6 million fans in attendance, and was described as the first free outdoor Western rock concert in Soviet history. Wilson also toured with AC/DC on their Ballbreaker World Tour, their Stiff Upper Lip World Tour, and their Black Ice World Tour, playing 168 shows in 29 countries with over 5 million fans in attendance, and at the time, was the second highest-grossing tour in history. He also toured with AC/DC on their Rock or Bust World Tour. Cosmo directed and operated the lighting for The Freddie Mercury Tribute Concert for AIDS Awareness, which celebrated the life and legacy of Freddie Mercury and raise money for AIDS research. The tribute concert, which took place at Wembley Stadium for an audience of 72,000, featured a wide variety of guests including Robert Plant (of Led Zeppelin), Roger Daltrey (of The Who), Extreme, Elton John, Metallica, David Bowie, Annie Lennox, Tony Iommi (of Black Sabbath), Guns N' Roses, Elizabeth Taylor, George Michael, Def Leppard, Seal and Liza Minnelli.
It was broadcast live to 76 countries and had an estimated viewing audience of 1 billion people. He also has credit for several live concert films, the Rolling Stones Steel Wheels At the Max (1991) IMAX movie, The Freddie Mercury Tribute Concert for AIDS Awareness, Emerson, Lake & Palmer's Welcome Back, Black Sabbath's The Last Supper, five films for AC/DC - Live at Donington, No Bull, Stiff Upper Lip Live, Live at the Circus Krone, and Live at River Plate, Dio's Holy Diver Live DVD, Scorpions' Live At Wacken Open Air, Foreigner's Alive & Rockin, and Aerosmith's Aerosmith Rocks Donington. Cosmo received a Parnelli Award for Lighting Director of the Year 2015 for Lighting Director of the Year for AC/DC in 2016 and Aerosmith in 2017, and the "Live Production Summit Pinnacle Awards" for both Lighting Director of the Year and Lighting Designer of the Year in 2020.
Originally recorded on June 8, 2021
Remastered: 2026