“My goal is that the audience can’t tell when I’m going from the pre-programmed parts of the songs to the improvised ones,” says Andrew Cass, LD for String Cheese Incident (SCI). Indeed, he has 90 or so songs programmed in his grandMA2 console, but with this band, there is a section in every song where they go on an improvised musical tangent, and the lighting needs to follow along. He has developed a system that lets him stray from his song cuelist during the “jam” sections and return to the song looks as smoothly as possible.
An Eclectic Mix
The String Cheese Incident started out as a bluegrass band but, as Cass explains, “they cross genres more than most jam bands. I take my lighting influences from my favorite parts of those genres. On this tour you’ll see some Marc Brickman-type looks with the vertical circle truss during the rock songs, or Chris Kuroda aerial stuff during the “jammy” songs, or Marc Janowitz-style upstage specials in the song structure.”
In addition, there is a video element that relies heavily on a two-camera system that is operated by his assistant Cassady Miller-Halloran. “I wanted to showcase the musicianship in this band,” Andrew says, “and it’s an alternative to conventional video content.” By placing a PTZ camera on a T-bar on the DS truss, he used video feedback layered with live images and video content overlays to create original video looks.
In 2004, Cass graduated from Northeastern University in Boston with a bachelor’s degree in the music industry. He moved west to Boulder, CO to intern with SCI Fidelity Records, who released SCI’s live shows along with some others. Over the following years, he ended up touring with other acts such as Dr. Dog, Passion Pit and Bassnectar. He finally ended up back with The String Cheese Incident in 2014. “It was really a dream of mine to be able to light this band. They are so dynamic, and I have been listening to their music since I was a teenager. My first show was in ‘99 at an apple orchard in Jamesville, NY, when I was a senior in high school.”
This summer, Morpheus Lights provided the visual production, which centered around a circular truss hung vertically on center. A 5mm video wall fills the center while 24 Ayrton MagicDot-R fixtures line the face, along with 12 Ayrton VersaPix-Rs and 28 Saber 500 LED strips from Upstaging. The Sabers are fed a video signal from his VPU+ through a Brompton Technologies unit that maps and processes the image.
The downstage and midstage trusses are lined with Saber 1000 LED strips and Clay Paky Sharpys and Scenius Spots. Chauvet Strike 4 LED moles light the crowd and backlight the band from the floor. Ayrton NandoBeam-S9 lights are used to wash the band. Cass credited the setup in general, and the Scenius’ autofocus in particular. “Even with zoom effects, iris, and prism, the beam always stayed in focus.”
Cass is a big proponent for using a visualizer for preshow programming. “I build and program every show in MA3D first and focus on making sure my fixture profiles work as closely as possible in 3D as they do in real life. I will use Capture,” a Swedish visualizer program, “to visualize fixtures with multiple instances or continuous pan and tilt attributes. For the most recent tour, I used CITP,” the open network protocol, “to put the video elements in the 3D environment as well. This significantly cut down on the amount of real life preproduction time needed to program this number of songs.”
Crew
- Production Manager: Ryan Balentine
- Lighting Designer: Andrew Cass
- L2 & Camera Operator: Cassady Miller-Halloran
- Stage Manager: Matty Vicidomini
- Lighting Co: Morpheus Lights
- Morpheus Team: Chris Perron, Mark Fetto, Josh Schultz (Crew Chief), Brett Lorins (Lighting Tech)
Gear
- 2 grandMA2 full size consoles
- 12 Ayrton VersaPix-RS fixtures
- 6 Ayrton NandoBeam S9s
- 24 Ayrton MagicDot-Rs
- 18 Clay Paky Scenius Spots
- 12 Clay Paky Sharpys
- 14 Martin Atomic 3000 strobes
- 17 Chauvet Strike 4s
- 6 Ultratec Radiance Touring System hazers
- 49 Absen X5 5.2mm outdoor tiles
- 17 Upstaging Saber 1000s
- 28 Upstaging Saber 500s
- 1 Sony PMW-EX3 Camera
- 1 Sony BRC-H700 PTZ Camera
- 2 Marshall V-LCD17HR preview monitors
- 1 Novastar MCTRL660 LED processor
- 1 Brompton Tessera M2 LED processor
