Going from concert lighting to landscape lighting was an easy transition for me coming from many years in the concert lighting industry. One of the concert lighting companies I worked with in the mid 90s was Bandit Lights in Nashville. Bandit had a rich history and I had been calling and sending in a resume for a few years. In 1993 as I was just starting a huge tour I called home from my Miami hotel suite to check in with my mom and had a message from a friend at Bandit,he said call they want you to come in and talk about a tour.I went to Knoxville and spoke with the owner and soon went out on the first tour with Dan Fogelberg as the lighting technician. That tour ended and I got a call back in NC could I go out and do a Christmas tour with the Oak Ridge Boys. The Oak Ridge Boys,Brenda Lee and Alvin and the Chipmunks. A little after Christmas I got a call asking if I would thing about relocating to Nashville to work on a tour with a new country artist Alan Jackson on his first headline tour. Nashville turned out to be a nice place and you run into so many artists while at the Kroger shopping. We did a songwriter award show at the Ryman auditorium and not being so country music aware,a nice gentleman came back by my dimmer area side stage and asked if he could sit back there with me . a few minutes later my boss from Bandit called me on the headset and said,Joe how do you know Vince Gill 🙂
I did a few weekend gigs with our account at the time WWF wrestling which carried a huge lighting production,I have to say there is nothing more humorous than fogging up the Undertakers coffin so another wrestler could break it up with an axe during a backstage cutaway scene. WWF was sure alot of fun and alof of frequent flyer miles.
Probably my most memorable tours were with Billy Ray Cyrus who we got to see go from headlining arenas to going down to just one truck to playing casinos. The other side of the coin was being a part of a country tour where Tim Mcgraw was opening for Little Texas with Blackhawk opening,seemed like overnight don’t take the girl came out we did a video shoot and bam suddenly people knew the words and sang it louder than Tim did,we watched Tim turn into the headline act and it could have not happened to a nicer guy.
http://www.banditlites.com/About%20Us/40YearsofBandit.pdfhttp://www.banditlites.com/About%20Us/40YearsofBandit.pdf
