Kyle Field, home of the Texas A&M Aggies football team in College Station, opened up for the first time in its history for a concert. And they did it with The King of Country: George Strait, who then set a U.S. ticketed concert attendance record for his June 15 show with 110,905 fans filling the stands. Dave Hare reflects on the historic in-the-round stadium event.
Hare has worked on the Strait team for 20 years, with 15 of those as Video Director. “My job as Video Director incorporates many positions to make the awesome visual magic fans experience at a George Strait show. I not only act as Executive Producer calling the show, I also act as the Technical Director by switching the show. I also create and call the 360 LED fascia board content cues during the songs and operate all of the playback and overlays for the show,” he explains. “Sometimes I can’t get all of the words out of my mouth because three different cues are happening within a half second of one another.”
For this special event—and the only one in Strait’s home state this year—Hare hit the ground running in College Station–Bryan, TX a few days early. “George has a song, ‘The Weight of the Badge,’ which is a thank-you to first -responders. Normally, I grab photos from the Internet, edit them into the original content from the music video and display them for the 15-second guitar solo,” he explains. But for this show, he wanted to elevate the impact that the visuals would have on the crowd. So, the day before the show he visited seven local law enforcement and fire departments and captured enough footage for the entirety of the second half of the song. He was blown away by the reaction. “I was told the cheering was so loud you couldn’t hear the show,” he says, “and there was a standing ovation at the end of the song.”
Hare couldn’t hear it because he was positioned with his video switcher setup in an air-conditioned room backstage. “We had 15 cameras on this show to account for the rotating stage,” he says. “All cues are live, nothing is timecoded. Every person has to be on their game during the show.”
While Hare says they can now go back to their “normal stadium shows” to finish out the year, he has decided that creating the lengthy local custom footage will be a new standard for each city the Strait team visits going forward. The summer tour wraps up in July, with a long break until December’s Allegiant Stadium gig in Las Vegas.
Lyle Lovett & Robert Earl Keen
While Strait’s stage was under construction on campus, Texas singer-songwriters and Texas A&M alumni Lyle Lovett (class of 1979) and Robert Earl Keen (1978) reunited a few miles away for a concert at the George H.W. Bush Presidential Library and Museum in College Station. The occasion was part of a series of community celebrations honoring the late 41st U.S. president on what would have been his 100th birthday. Called 41@100, the evening’s free concert featured a stage set up in the parking lot, with fans carrying in their own camping chairs. LD Chad Landers handled the lighting looks. Each artist performed a set with their bands, then joined forces to sing the “Front Porch Song” that the two longtime friends co-wrote during their school days.
Landers began working with Lovett recently. “We recently did two weeks of shows on the West Coast and got to know each other. Lyle and I really hit it off.” But for this simple one-off, he says, not much design work was needed. “I was more of a security blanket,” he explains. “It was more of a comfort thing for Lyle.”
Lovett likes to keep it simple, and as much of the early evening show was awash in daylight, that made it easy. “He likes static looks and color saturation. He’s not looking for haze or movement. He likes a real classy show, and that’s what I try to give him,” he notes. “As the sun set, it was a tremendous key light for the band, and the backlight started showing up. I just kept tweaking the key light as it got darker, and tried to get everyone lit as best I could. I was happy with it at the end of the night.”
From Crows to Carrie
Michael Keller is “really looking forward to summer,” as Lighting Director for Counting Crows for Designer Joel Reiff, who is out as Lighting Director for Carrie Underwood. The Crows are opening for Santana, whose LD is Michael Ledesma, “and that’s a bonus for me,” Keller says, who will enjoy hanging out with his friend. Having Keller cover for him is “quite an honor,” Reiff says. “Who could imagine that someone of his caliber would even be available at this time of year? I’ll miss the Crows this summer, even though they’ll be in capable hands. Where’s cloning when you really need it?”
Cirque to DNC
Bruce Rodgers and Tribe are launching their design for Cirque du Soleil’s Songblazers, which kicks off its U.S. tour July 2-28 in Nashville. The theatrical production, which includes their usual aerial performances, focuses on trailblazers past and present in country music. Fabrication has also started on Tribe’s design for the Democratic National Convention in August in Chicago.
New Cues
- Celine Royer reports in as Designer and Programmer for Fall Out Boy’s festival run, which launched June 16 at the Download Festival in the UK.
- Scott Cunningham of Cut2Black Designs designed and programmed the Chris Tomlin tour, with Associate Programmer Luke Elrod and Associate Programmer/Tour LD Nathan York. He also production designed the new Walker Hayes tour. And he was Lighting Director on a Netflix special for comedian Fortune Feimster, Production Designed by Robert Peterson.
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