Cosmo Wilson

Cosmo Wilson (born Charles Wilson on February 18, 1961) is a concert Lighting Designer and director for rock & roll bands, and has been since 1986.

He has worked with over 40 acts including AC/DC, Aerosmith, Black Sabbath, Emerson, Lake & Palmer, Foreigner, INXS, Iron Maiden, Meat Loaf, Mötley Crüe, The Rolling Stones, 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" 1989 tour as Lighting Crew Chief before moving up to Lighting Director in February 1990, 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 600 shows since then, including 1991's "Monsters of Rock" stadium tour, which finished in Moscow on September 28, 1991 at Tushino airfield, 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. He also toured with AC/DC in 1996 on their Ballbreaker World Tour, in 2001-2002 on their Stiff Upper Lip World Tour; and in 2008-2010 on their Black Ice World Tour, which lasted from October 2008 through June 2010, and played 168 shows in 29 countries with over 5 million fans in attendance, and at the time, was the second highest grossing tour in history.

In April 1992, working alongside Designer Patrick Woodroffe, he directed and operated the lighting for the The Freddie Mercury Tribute Concert for AIDS Awareness, which was a concert to celebrate 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. The concert was broadcast live to 76 countries and had an estimated viewing audience of 1 billion people.

In the Autumn of 2002, he traveled with the Scorpions on the most extensive rock & roll tour of the old Soviet Union ever undertaken at the time. They played 20 cities over the course of 6 weeks on a tour stretching from Ekaterinburg in the West to Vladivostock in the East.

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 (1992), Black Sabbath's "The Last Supper" (1999), 5 films for AC/DC- "Live at Donington" (1991), "No Bull" (1996), "Stiff Upper Lip Live" (2001), "Live at the Circus Krone" (2003), and "Live at River Plate" (2009); Dio's "Holy Diver Live" DVD (2006), Scorpions "Live At Wacken Open Air 2006" DVD (2007) and Foreigner's"Alive & Rockin" DVD (2007).

He has worked extensively with Lighting Designer Patrick Woodroffe since 1989 as co-Designer, Lighting Director and Programmer on several of Woodroffe's shows, including AC/DC, Black Sabbath and the Rolling Stones.

Prior to becoming a Lighting Designer, Cosmo worked as a backline technician for such bands as Joan Jett and the Blackhearts, Mink DeVille, D.L. Byron and Falcon Eddy, and musicians such as Ricky Byrd, Willy DeVille, Joan Jett, Thommy Price, Robert Sarzo and Johnny Thunders.

He is currently working with Aerosmith on their "Global Warming Tour" World Tour.