Bandit lights Andy Wood at Bijou Theatre
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While Wood had been playing mandolin since the age of five, winning the World Championship Mandolin championship at the age of 16, Wood picked up an electric guitar as a teenager, only to find himself beating 3400 guitarists at the Guitar Center Guitarmageddon contest at 22. Over a decade later, Wood has performed with Rascal Flatts, Sebastian Bach, and formed his own band, in addition to releasing a double album in 2015, Caught Between the Truth & a Lie.
Using Bandit supplied VL 2500s, Martin Atomic Strobes, Bandit’s exclusive GRNLite Moving Washes and GRNLite pars and Source Four Lekos, lighting designer Alex Becker fashioned a powerful lighting presence for the acclaimed musician.
“As I was listening to Andy’s music, there were points where I thought the strobes would work well, such as hard drum hits,” said Becker. “I used the VL 2500 as a pattern wash and to create big beamy looks, while the GRNLite pars provided back light and GRNLite moving washes were used to light the audience during certain points during the night, along with creating more movement on top of the VL 2500.”
With Bandit being well versed in providing lighting at the Bijou Theatre, Bandit knew how to work with the 600lb limit on the house’s lineset, placing everything that is usually hung on battens into four truss towers placed upstage of the performers.
“Another challenge that I ran into the day of show was balancing the LED fixtures with the video, so that the looks translated both on stage and on camera,” said Becker. “After tweaking the focus and intensity, both I and the video director were happy with the look the audience was seeing and what was being seen on camera.”
"When Andy called, I told him Bandit was happy to be on board,” said Bandit production manager Allison Burchett. “We consider Andy Bandit family, as both he and Travis (Toy) play with Rascal Flatts who have been Bandit clients for several years. Andy had an all-star line-up of both musicians and crew, with his FOH being Turbo from Lo' Cash, his current band, and a couple guys from Sam Bush's band, who we work with frequently at Blackberry Farm. It felt like one big family reunion of a bunch of extremely talented folks. We were thrilled to be a part of it, and I can't wait to see the video.”
“With the limited time we had the day of the show, I was very happy with the way the show turned out, and it couldn't have been done without the help from my fellow bandits Chuck Hastings and Jamie Sullivan,” concluded Becker.
(Jim Evans)
