Despite his worldwide profile and his stage presence, Young is relatively shy as a performer, always wearing a hat onstage, and disliking spotlights so LD Keith Wissmar, who has worked with Young for nine years, has his work cut out. The tone of the Are You Passionate tour - a retro Motown style - much softer and more rounded than much of the material that Young has produced in the past, inspired Wissmar to design a pseudo 1960/70’s TV set look into his show lighting, typical of the US Bandstand teenage music shows of that era. Simple in presentation when compared to the slick productions of today, they nonetheless yielded a certain aesthetic charm. Wissmar reproduced this with simple wash and beam looks, and plain set panels that didn’t invade the stage or distract, and took light well.
A great utilitarian when it comes to stage sets, Wissmar created his ‘Home Depot’ set panels from PVC wastepipe frames with diffusion filter stretched across the fronts. He paints these with large saturated colour fans, making large and impressive blocks of colour. To achieve a spotlight effect Source Four profiles were hung from a pipe off the venue’s balcony. The lighting rig - featuring Molefays and Martin MAC 2000s and 500s - sits on three Mini Beam box trusses, each raked to about 30 degrees to satisfy Wissmar’s desire for a multi-level effect onstage. The box trusses also double as set pieces in their own right.
Neil Young undertakes a shed tour in the US which Bandit will be servicing - with a larger rig based on the same design.
(Ruth Rossington)
