NASHVILLE, Tenn. {WTVF} — With fireworks in place and musicians warmed up, every second of Nashville's 4th of July fireworks show is planned.
"Timing is everything for this show," said principal pops conductor for the Nashville Symphony, Enrico Lopez-Yanez. "I mean it's all about keeping our tempos right so that the fireworks all line up with what we're playing and what the audience is seeing."
When the time is right Lopez-Yanez drops his baton, and Larry Trotter will give the first cue, signaling Lansden Hill to flip a switch.
"The first cue is red to blue to gold glitter with white red pistol," said Hill, president of Pyro Shows, Inc.
Hill will lead an eight-man team from the safety of a steel bunker outside Nissan Stadium. Each person on the team will be at the helm of their own switchboard, controlling every firework shot into the sky. The largest shells weigh 20 pounds and will reach a height of 1,000 feet.
"We hear the show, we feel the show, we don't see the show," said Hill.
But even after 54 years on the job, Hill said nerves still kick in.
It's a carefully choreographed dance of lights and sounds leading up to that final moment.
"When we get that last shot, and you hear the boats, you hear the people, you hear the roar of the crowd - you can look at each other, and it's a knuckle buster or a high-five moment, and you say 'we have made it'," said Hill.
The show begins Wednesday night at 9:30 p.m. and will last until 10:00.
