ASHEVILLE, NC — Warren Haynes, longtime guitarist with the Allman Brothers band and founding member of Gov’t Mule, began inviting fellow musicians to perform for charity back in 1989. This year, the annual Christmas Jam marked 25 years, and featured Gregg Allman, Widespread Panic, Michael Franti, OAR, Gov’t Mule, Grace Potter and the Nocturnals. LD Preston Hoffman once again used gear from Bandit Lites.
More details from Bandit Lites (www.banditlites.com):
Hoffman, who has designed the lighting for the event for three years now, was tasked by producer Joe Dindas to create something spectacular for the 25th anniversary.
“The idea behind the show was to do something that we had never done and that would push the show over the top,” explained Hoffman. “This is always a tricky subject because every dollar I spend for this show is one less dollar that goes to Habitat for Humanity, so I tend to want to simplify and get the best bang for my buck.”
While the US Cellular Center has what Hoffman refers to as “special eccentricities” (in regards to the rigging and visibility to the people seated behind the stage), he was aiming to have a video element using Bandits Mirage video panels and hanging the wall at 45 degrees so it would not block the stage.
“To accomplish this we hung a circle truss with a matrix of pipe protruding from the back of the circle which we then hung the video mesh off of,” Hoffman said. “This not only helped us with trim height, but it created a video ceiling of sorts over the band that looked as good from the back of the room as it did from the front row. We ran the content off of a Maxedia server which has a very easy to use “on the fly” interface which guest LDs were comfortable triggering at FOH.”
Hoffman also hung a star in the middle of the room as a stunning focal point. “Many people told me that they thought it was so beautiful and added that little sparkle during the most beautiful moments of the show. I remember specifically Warren and Greg Allman’s acoustic set had many of those moments.”
Another of Hoffman’s favorite aspects of the event was using the wide range of new equipment Bandit has added to its inventory including the GLP X4S, Robe Pointe and Coemar StageLite LED FX.
“It didn’t take me long to realize the versatility of these fixtures,” Hoffman said of the X4S’s, which he used as front wash, front key lighting as well as US wash lights. “I put 20 of them on the DS truss, using 14 of them for wash and 6 as key light. My reasoning for this is it gave me so much versatility to take wash lights and turn them into key lights depending on how many band members I had to deal with in any given band. I am very grateful that I did that because some of the bands turned into 12 – 16 musicians as more and more guests would pile on stage. I picked up musicians joining in the fun at will with this set up which was invaluable given the spur of the moment nature of this show.”
Upstage, Hoffman had X4S’s in groups of four in addition to a dozen of them around the circle truss, a design decision he said he knew within minutes added a fullness and complexity to the show that was “truly stunning.”
“I was able to create full looks before turning anything else on and I knew this show was going to look great!” expounded Hoffman. “The X4S has the ability to look like a hard edge fixture if you get the focus and zoom just right so not only did I have nice looks, but they looked really crisp.”
Hoffman also found both the Robe Pointes and the Coemar StageLite LED FX to be incredible additions to the design, as the Pointes offered a super bright, wide look that could cut through everything when needed, while the StageLite LED FX allowed for Hoffman to fill in the Austrian Backdrop with full color and no streaks. Since StageLite LED FX is a CYC light that has LED battens in them that can be focused independently, he was able to “to run some interesting tilt effects and get some waviness out of them. Little did I know that there would be times when these fixtures were the star of the show, especially in Moody Blues moments.”
“As always, this show is for cost only, so every single penny counts,” said Bandit’s production director Dizzy Gosnell. “As Preston said earlier, making every fixture be useful is key. The system itself, when the houselights were on, didn’t look very dramatic at all. The magic happens when the haze kicks in and the houselights go off, the rig looked fantastic. The GLP X4S fixtures keep amazing me with their abilities to be a very capable key light, an awesome ACL effect, small footprint floor light or general wash light, all in something about the size of a Par56 can. The Coemar Stagelite units are just unique in what they can do for scenery washes and can create some really impressive head scratching effects with these heads. Both Preston and his Brother Paul (of Widespread Panic fame) got stuck into this rig and created some memorable looks over the long 2 x day show. We are grateful to Jon Dindas and Kurt Steelman for the ability to be involved in this show; Habitat for Humanity is a very worthy cause indeed.”
“It is such a pleasure to work with Bandit on this show every year,” Hoffman said, “from the design phase with Dizzy Gosnell to the onsite execution of Wayne Lotoza, Shawn Beaulieu, Andy French and Chas Albea. They really help me out more than anyone really knows and make the system a success. I couldn’t do it without these guys. They deserve a lot of credit.”
More details from GLP (www.germanlightproducts.com):
GLP Impression X4S Keeps Christmas Jam Running Until 4am
LD Preston Hoffman praises GLP’s compact LED head, which dominated the set
Preston Hoffman provided a dynamic lightshow with a difference for the third consecutive year at the annual Warren Haynes Christmas Jam. He decided to use GLP’s new compact impression X4S almost exclusively, bolstered by few other discharge or conventional tungsten effects.
The Pulse Lighting designer is no stranger to GLP’s impression series (or the U.S. Cellular Center, Asheville, NC where the show takes place). Last summer he pulled 12 of GLP’s larger impression X4 fixtures for the Red Rocks show by Slightly Stoopid, so he knew all about the strength, intensity and flexibility of the lightweight LED sources.
For the 25th edition of Christmas Jam, Dizzy Gosnell at Bandit Lites’ San Francisco office — described by Preston as “one of the best in the business” — provided 56 of GLP’s next generation impression X4S for the special Christmas show, enabling the technician to group 36, divided into four backlight sets and create an ACL-type effect, while the remaining 20 were placed on the front truss to function as key lights. Bandit again donated the equipment to help support the charity Habitat for Humanity, the beneficiaries of the event.
“The show was essentially LED,” Preston acknowledges, “although I did have a few traditional hard edge fixtures and audience blinders. I have never used such a high ratio of LED fixtures before, primarily because until now I haven’t been able to get everything I need out of them.”
As an early adopter of LED front light, he says the X4S outperformed any moving LEDs that he had used previously. “Their versatility never stopped impressing me; the one thing that I have not seen until now is the ability to get a crisp beam out of a moving LED fixture but I was able to get beautiful looks out of these by zooming in and focusing them to look like a hard edge fixture.”
Preston says the design of the DS truss proved a great asset. “With a multi-artist show, front light is forever changing position, and often guests would join bands onstage at the spur of the moment. Having 20 of the X4S units on the truss allowed me amazing flexibility to deal with this on the fly, when Lekos would never have never cut it.”
As for power feeds, he notes that the amount of cable necessary was greatly diminished from years past, while the compact size of the GLP heads allowed him to fit many into small spaces between the bigger fixtures.
A further advantage was that in the morning, as each band set up, he could “really dial in their front light including keeping the front wash tight on the band and not over the stage.”
So having proven the merits of the X4 at Red Rocks, why the switch … and what features other than size impressed him about the X4S? “Christmas Jam is a show that I get to try new things out on and I was ready to experiment again,” he replies. “Dizzy told me that [Bandit] had just purchased around 90 of the new heads, so I was eager to put as many as I could on this show to see what the smaller version could do — and this year was like a home run in that regard.
“I had an idea from using the X4 — but found it to be more than just a smaller version, as it has its own characteristics,” he appraises. “For instance, the small face allows you to get really tight beams as opposed to a high output, large faced wash light. In fact I was not thinking of these as wash lights at all, but as an independent layer that filled a lot of space with beautiful fans and ACL looks. However, I was not prepared for exactly how stunning they would be in reality.”
The dynamic was achieved by placing 12 heads around a circle that contained a video wall with 24 on a straight left to right truss. Preston notes how beautiful the fixtures looked on video and pictures from the pit. “There was always something interesting going on behind each musician which is something that I think is generally missing when you see concerts on TV. When I see cameras close up on musicians the light show is usually totally lost, however this show had great looking close ups!”
And Preston’s ‘champagne moment’ within the show? “I particularly liked how the X4S on the US Truss turned out. It was sort of old school meets new school in that I was using new equipment to deliver old school ACL looks.”
Summing up, the LD says, “Everyone I talked to had nothing but amazing things to say about the show from a lighting aspect; this year was supposed to be over the top and it certainly was. To exemplify the point, Phil Lesh Quintet, Gregg Allman & Warren Haynes, John Scofield & The Uberjam Band, Keb’ Mo’ and Gov’t Mule all performed, in many collaborations, along with Widespread Panic, who closed the opening night, not leaving the stage until 4am!
