Lighting designer Mick Thornton has worked with the band for the last five years, each tour turning the stage into a completely different and eye-catching visual environment for the performance. Keeping to a basic front and back truss format for his primary building blocks, this year Thornton added three overhead triangular trusses which move, and four vertical upstage towers.
The stage set - as devised by Thornton - is all in white, including the cyc, which has a four-channel star cloth behind it and the stage floor, which is covered by a white carpet. Parts of the set also have white scrim stretched across them including the towers and the triangular trusses, this of course takes the light beautifully.
On the front truss are six bars of six Pars and four 2K Source Four Profiles, plus four Martin MAC 2K Performances, six Source Fours and four 2-lites. The upstage truss features another six bars of six Pars, four 2-lites, six MAC 2K Profiles, and the vertical towers have a MAC 2K on the top and a 2-lite per tower rigged slightly lower. The three triangles all feature three MAC 250s each - one at each corner. The picture is completed with four 4-cell ground rows for infill on the cyc.
Bandit is also supplying three Lycian 1.2K HMI follow spots, two DF50 smoke machines and all 22 points of rigging, motors and control. Thornton is using an Avolites Diamond 4 to run the show. Bandit's UK project manager is Lester Cobrin and in the US, it's Richard Willis "Bandit has been great as always" says Thornton, "It's really good to have complete continuity and the same level of service across continents." His UK crew are Nigel Julian (crew chief) and Johnny "Hotpants" Ashton.
(Sarah Rushton-Read)
