FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
NASHVILLE – This tour is not merely a production. It is a pursuit. A chase. An ongoing artistic experiment in capturing the intangible beauty of live music and translating it into light, emotion, and atmosphere. At its center is Saxton Waller – a designer who does not simply cue a show, but channels something deeper, something visceral. His process is rooted in instinct, in presence, in being moved.
“I need to be able to put on a song, close my eyes, and see something,” Waller shares. “If I’m moved by the music, I will see color, movement, structure – all sorts of things. That’s enough to get the ideas flowing.”
For Waller, lighting is not a mechanism – it’s a spiritual discipline. Designing, programming, operating… none of it matters unless the music first opens a door. His commitment to only touring with artists who inspire him has distilled his approach to something pure and rare.
“If I am going on a tour and standing in front of the rig every night, I want to chase magic. That’s what’s happening on the Billy Strings Tour. We are chasing magic. It’s slippery and elusive… but it’s worth the chase.”
His return to touring after nearly nine years has been a rediscovery of that magic – a feeling he says he had nearly forgotten, until one night when the rig, the band, and the moment aligned perfectly. As he describes it, that feeling was enough to reaffirm the entire endeavor.
A RIG ROOTED IN NATURE—AND SOMETHING BEYOND IT
When crafting the original design concepts, Waller turned to nature for inspiration: flowing water, roots, animal forms, crystals, plants, leaves, steam lit by fractured sunbeams. Organic shapes. Living geometry. Visuals that spoke of Earth’s textures and rhythms.
But somewhere along the way, something unexpected emerged.
“There is an organic thing happening – but sometimes it feels like it is organic from a different planet,” Waller says. “Familiar, but still somehow alien… one of those beautiful accidents that I am now trying to embrace.”
This evolution – a fusion of the natural and the extraterrestrial – has become part of the show’s identity, its pulse. And each night, as the band stretches songs into expansive, improvisational jams, Waller guides audiences through peaks of brilliance and gentle descents back to the heart of each tune.
THE QUIET HEROISM OF PRECISION, ENGINEERING, AND PREP
Behind this fluid creativity lies intense technical discipline. The speed, accuracy, and consistency required to rebuild, update, and refocus 140 looks each day would be impossible without the tight logistics and reliability of the Bandit team.
“I am completely dependent on the Bandit crew to get the rig built to spec in a timely fashion,” Waller notes. “Doors are at 6:30 every night, so I need the rig by 2:30. Every build day has its challenges, but the Bandit crew is always on point and striving to get me the rig on time.”
One of the most defining technical breakthroughs on this tour came from Bandit’s own Dizzy Gosnell, whose engineering vision turned Waller’s diamond-shaped truss concept into a structurally sound, tour-friendly reality.
Dizzy recalls the moment the concept came across his desk:
“Charlie Bryson rang me in the summer to let me know they were going ahead with a new design and could he send me a current design plot. Opening it up, the most striking thing was the diamond shaped trusses… how could we maintain the integrity of the design but make them quick to build, truck friendly, and ultimately flexible for future use?”
The challenge was immense:
72 Chauvet PXL Curve 12s had to stay mounted in the truss permanently – yet 36 separate 12” sticks would be too slow, too unwieldy, too inefficient to tour.
So Dizzy did what Dizzy does: he engineered the impossible.
“Cooking dinner one night I had my kitchen scissors on the counter open… I grabbed another pair, put them point to point, and started drawing before the spark went away – scraping the burnt dinner from the pans the next morning.”
His breakthrough was elegant and ingenious:
Treat each half of the diamond like a pair of scissors – hinged to fold for the truck, and open to form the full diamond on show days.
A 60-degree gate connected the two halves, creating flawless geometry.
Tyler leg receivers on the outside gave stability and perfect wheel handling.
And shortening each truss to 7’6″ allowed the diamonds to pack cleanly across the truck.
“That stagger alone saved 12’ of truck,” Dizzy notes.
A custom 12” centerline truss – something Tyler did not previously manufacture – completed the design, enabling the PXL Curves to travel safely nested inside.
“Tyler pulled out all the stops to build these totally custom pieces in the time frame we had.”
These diamonds – five of them flown across the upstage – are not just structural pieces. They are visual signatures, surfaces for Waller to paint on, canvases that vanish into blackness until the moment they are lit.
“There’s a diamond-shaped black skin inside each diamond… giving Saxton an entirely new set of surfaces to light. When not lit, it completely disappears.”
The diamond array has become one of the most distinctive elements of the Billy Strings production.
A PRODUCTION FOUNDATION BUILT ON TRUST
Production Manager Charlie Bryson echoes the sentiment, describing the collaboration with Bandit Lites as seamless, supportive, and consistently reliable.
“We were up against some real logistical challenges delivering this rig in time, but with Bandit’s industry connections and work ethic, we managed to pull it off.”
“There’s never a request too difficult… Whether it’s a small annoying detail or a massive show change, it’s handled with professionalism, pragmatism, and efficiency.”
Bryson praises the partnership as one built on mutual understanding and shared vision.
“It never feels like a back-and-forth with Bandit. They understand the vision – it’s a collaborative effort to get to the end result.”
From preparation to labels to techs to CAD work, the Bandit standard is evident every day.
“This design really requires top-notch techs… and the team we have out with us right now are really nailing it.”
A LIVING PIECE OF ART
Waller’s approach is one of continuous evolution. Not perfection – progress. Not repetition – interpretation.
“The light show should be a living piece of art, just like the music is,” he says.
“The programming will never be finished… I am striving to make each show the best one yet.”
Night after night, the show grows, shifts, becomes more nuanced. And when the band hits the peak of a jam and the lights climb with them, something electric happens.
Dizzy sees it too:
“Seeing a song build into a crescendo with the lights going full tilt… staying on that level of intensity with the song… the crowd roaring at the end of that segment gives you goosebumps. The synergy of band and lights pulling that reaction from the crowd is why I got into this business over 45 years ago and still love it.”
ONE DESIGNER. ONE VISION. A TEAM UNITED.
Even as he stands at the center of this sophisticated and deeply artistic production, Waller remains characteristically humble.
“Award winning? No. Those awards are meant for giant pop rigs… I’m just little old me.”
But the scale of the accomplishment is undeniable.
“The fact that the Bandit team and I produce this rig every day with only three techs and myself is huge.”
A new season brings new moves – this past fall Drew Dawes took the reins of Production Manager, giving Charlie the chance to focus fully on delivering his signature excellence as Monitor Engineer – strengthening this already award-winning team.
For Bandit Lites, supporting Waller, Bryson, Dawes and Gosnell on this tour has been a privilege – one that speaks to the core of Bandit’s philosophy: lifting creative voices, empowering innovation, and delivering craftsmanship without compromise.
This tour is not simply a job. It is a collaboration forged from passion, trust, artistry, engineering, and an unshakable pursuit of something transcendent.
A pursuit of magic.
And together – Saxton Waller, Charlie Bryson, Dizzy Gosnell, Drew Dawes and the Bandit Lites team – continue to chase it.
