NASHVILLE, TN – Grammy-award winning bluegrass musician Billy Strings recently began a yearlong tour with a stunning lighting system supplied by Bandit Lites. With musical influences traversing from conventional bluegrass to metal and rock, Billy Strings’ prodigious abilities on multiple instruments makes his performances one of the can’t miss shows of the year.
A hallmark of bluegrass music is its collaborative nature between musicians, with solos and features showcasing the individuals while crafting a full sound. And while Billy Strings LD Roger Gant admits this isn’t the average bluegrass band, he acknowledges, “forms still must be respected. It is the blend of the old and the new that really sets this apart.”
“With that in mind, the intention behind the lighting since joining Team Strings is to create an immersive environment that allows us to project the emotion and energy of the music and highlight those feature moments,” Gant said.
The definitive moment for the design came with Billy Strings sharing sketches of circular pods with Gant, breaking away from traditional linear lighting designs.
“I was immediately engaged, and I started fleshing out his initial concept, adding in the riser pods, the LED rings within the pods and choosing some preliminary fixtures,” said Gant. “A cornerstone of this design are the moving pixel bars, replacing the more common wash light with a round face. We added in the risers, eschewing our previous setup and honestly breaking from the bluegrass mold quite a bit. Each band member now has their own stage within a stage, allowing us to highlight the solos and features, while tying it into the larger whole.”
Matthieu Larivée of LUZ Studio further fleshed out the concept, adding in video elements and streamlining the production design process.
“LUZ Studio immediately grasped what was going on and added their considerable experience and expertise to the project,” said Gant. “Their shared vision and beautiful art have taken this whole thing to a different level I could never have imagined, and it has been a great collaboration, in the true spirit of the bluegrass roots.”
With Bluegrass music deviating from the traditional music structure of an intro, verse and chorus and instead focusing on the musicality and solos of the songs, the pods provide a focus on each band member throughout the show.
“There’s a lighting outline to the pods to create a graphic look that helps that focus,” explained Larivée. “The four layers of different sources of lighting within the pods helps to vary the looks.”
“Ah, the pods: a very deceptive piece of engineering there,” said Bandit Lites Vice President of Production Dizzy Gosnell. “They look so simple and clean, which I love, but also millimeter accuracy needed in construction. There was no off the shelf unit or circle truss that came even close to ticking all the boxes on what this pod needed to do. It had to carry all the lamps inside the pod cabled up in the truck, for load-in/out speed, pack tightly in the truck, look good, and hold the lamps being spec’d inside and placed that they all had room to move without bashing into each other.”
After seeing the design, Dizzy and Bandit Lites Chair Michael T. Strickland attempted an online search only to learn they would need construct something. With a mere three weeks after Christmas to get them built in time for rehearsals, Michael reached out to Marc and Glenn of Tyler Truss who confidently said, “We’ll make it happen.”
Dizzy then got to work on sending up a few versions of the pod before arriving at the finished product. They could not be two halves, as a truss joint meant a bottom inner chord as well as an unseemly seam. Slimming them down from 8 feet to 7’ 6” OD offered the ability to fit inside the door frame of trucks and containers on their wheels loaded up with more than 800 pounds of light. They could double stack, even loaded with lights and cabled.
“Tyler really nailed it with the swift construction; it was a pleasure to see these units fired up and getting people talking,” said Gosnell. “After 46 years of being in this business I still get a huge buzz out of seeing something you worked on with sketches and CAD drawings for weeks come to life and giving the designer the tools to make the show soar.”
The remaining aspects of the lighting design included U-shaped trusses and fixtures to cover the band and create different shades and looks, while an array of linear fixtures to create a half circle look on the thrust, to invoke the circle feeling.
“Billy’s shows are not regular type of concerts,” said Larivée. “Some songs have jams, solos and can last 10 minutes; therefore, the lighting needs to follow that and punt it live, so Roger wanted to have some fixtures that were very flexible.”
Bandit Lites supplied over 200 feet of Tyler Truss as well as more than 250 fixtures for the tour including Ayrton Khamsin S, ROBE Spikie LED, Ayrton Mistral S, Chauvet STRIKE Array 2 and ACME Gemini, which were on the fascia of the pods and laid across all the trusses to define the space.
“The fact that it could be a linear fixture and then using each individual bright and bold cells was an effective tool to create looks,” said Larivée. “The small Chauvet footlights were subtle but very useful to create a basic key light for the band and Billy, and it was soft, so it was not brutal for them.”
Charlie Bryson, Production Manager for Billy Strings shared he worked almost exclusively with Dizzy Gosnell, and that he “could not ask for a better person to deal with.”
“Right from the get-go we had the most beautifully presented technical and financial proposals when vendor bids were coming in,” he said. “Dizzy’s individual technical insights on how the pods could be built, rigged and travel were extremely helpful and even now, with the production well and truly on the road I can call or email Dizzy with technical questions about potentially tricky up and coming venues and I’ll have a revised plot and some tips and tricks back within the hour. 11/10 customer support!”
Larivée described the process of working with Bandit as amazing, saying, “We worked with Dizzy who helped to design those pods to make sure that the logistics worked and that we were able to achieve our artistic looks with the chosen fixtures. I’m very happy about the outcome of the pods because it is a compact truss with a lot of bells and whistles. It does not look like a truss but more like a set piece living on top of the band. Besides the artistic outcome, I’m also proud about the logistics. Most of the fixtures travel on the truss and we can stack two pods and it wheels directly in the truck.”
“Bandit has been amazing from day one,” said Gant. “Dizzy Gosnell is an absolute legend, wealth of knowledge and is a pleasure to work with. His enthusiasm for this project has been exceptional from the start and the rest of the Bandit team has shared that same enthusiasm. My thanks and appreciation to Matt Dean, Chris Noll, and Jake Tickle especially, as well as to Michael Strickland for making it all possible.”
“Billy, Business Manager Sameen Ahmad and Manager Bill Orner, Charlie, Roger and the entire team are world class,” finished Strickland. “Their love for one another and attention to detail is amazing. Matt and the entire LUZ team have delivered another home run as they always do. Bandit is honored to be a part of this great team.”
For more information about Billy Strings and upcoming Spring tour dates, visit https://www.billystrings.com/tour.
About Bandit Lites, Inc.
Bandit Lites is a full-service design, management and producer of live events, theatrical productions, and live shows. Bandit Lites has a full staff of highly trained professionals to deal with all types of production needs. Bandit’s presence will ensure seamless transitions no matter where your next show takes you. More information available at www.BanditLites.com