USA - Grammy award winning vocal group Little Big Town is on the road with Bandit Lites for The Tornado Tour. Comprised of Karen Fairchild, Kimberly Schlapman, Jimi Westbrook and Phillip Sweet, the country music group has been unstoppable, with their first platinum single Pontoon racking up accolades, including the CMA Award for Single of the Year and the Grammy award for Best Country Duo/Group performance.
Raj Kapoor worked closely with Little Big Town to design a stunning set that did the word justice. The design features the remains of a theatre, with tattered legs and borders hanging across the mid stage.
While the name of the tour and album inspired the set design, lighting designer Chris Shrom worked with production manager Chris Diener on the production details during Rascal Flatts' Changed tour that they wanted to bring to Little Big Town's show.
"Being employed by Little Big Town since 2011, I've come to know their music and my design has grown with them," said Shrom. "Ultimately, the music inspires the lighting. Tone dictates colour, and visually draws out various feelings and emotions. When the music hits real hard, the lights should hit real hard. If there's a good beat, the lights need to reflect that. Lighting is very musical."
Shrom looked to balance fashion, like writing out lyrics to songs, and function in his design, meaning many of the fixtures in the show have dual purposes, such as the four fixtures that light the backdrop, set, and also provide a cool effect at the top of the show.
"We also have a lot of set pieces in this show," added Shrom, "and I learned an important lesson years ago in college: an unlit set is an invisible set."
Shrom spent a little over a week in the Martin Show Designer suite at Bandit with his Jands Vista T2, followed by another four days with the floor package and then another four days of rehearsal. The equipment list includes Bandit 5x5 Blinders, Elation Impressions, Clay Paky Sharpys, Color Blaze 72s, GRN LED pars, Atomic 3000 with color scrollers, Coemar Mini-Cycs, a Le Maitre Mark 2 LSG, 10-cell ministrips, Chandeliers, and CO2 Jets.
