Brad Paisley’s Bud Light Seltzer Sessions performance with Lady Antebellum was taped May 13 at MooTV’s The Steel Mill in Nashville and streamed May 15. While Lady Antebellum went with a more intimate vibe, Paisley pulled out the stops with a full arena-show production that included a moving light rig supplied and helmed by LD Dean Spurlock, big LED screen and cameras from MooTV and full P.A. from Sound Image, topped off with some blasts of confetti, even though the performance space lacked a live audience.
“It’s so great playing live music with my band,” Paisley said, as the second song started. “Welcome to the Bud Light Seltzer Sessions — I hope you’re safe. We’re going to have us a blast.”
The show, among the first post-shutdown full-production concerts, had a couple of key differences from Paisley’s tour gigs. As noted, the “arena,” in this case, was MooTV’s Steel Mill rehearsal facility. And the lack of an audience definitely changed the usual vibe between songs for this full-production gig. Paisley smiled as his sound crew played with him, piping in thunderous applause for a moment before cutting back to silence after one of his songs. The show still lives on in cyberspace (on YouTube) where it was viewed by 1.3 million people in the first 48 hours. (To watch, go to www.plsn.me/BP-2020.)
A Live Event Production
The rehearsal space looked great, and the event has been declared a success by every measurable way. “I know the intimate concerts from an artist performing in their living room that have been streamed have been nice, but I’ve believed that there has been an appetite for something bigger, and we wanted to be the ones who brought it,” said Scott Scovill, owner of MooTV and The Steel Mill.
Scovill started thinking about where the virus was going to take the country and our industry in general just when Covid-19 and the full ramifications started breaking across the country. Longtime client Paisley was up touring in Canada and was one of the last tours to be shut down. “When Brad got back to Nashville, we talked, and I told him he was our last act on the road. He then said, ‘Well, mark my words, I will be the first one back.’”
Safe Distancing for Performers and Crew
The event was orchestrated with great caution and care in strict adherence to CDC guidelines, and then some. First of all, every performers and crew showed up to the Steel Mill, a medic greeted them and took temperatures, while making sure that everyone filled out a questionnaire about symptoms, etc.
All visitors would then get wrist bands if approved (with a different one for each day). There was plenty of hand sanitizer, and crew members wore masks the whole time. (If it slipped under your nose, the medic let you know that that wasn’t cool). The crew was also kept to a bare minimum — if you were a manager, a band member’s girlfriend, or the typical lookie-loo that appears at shows like this, you were asked to stay home and not welcomed on the set. “Some crew we asked to work on this weren’t comfortable coming in, or their spouse wasn’t comfortable, and that was okay — no judgment,” Scovill says.
Once inside, there were all kinds of other precautions taken. The video production director, engineer and playback crew work typically six feet apart anyway — but now extra cables were brought in to separate them farther. “Two lighting console techs are typically on top of each other, and we asked them to put more space between the consoles, which they were happy to do,” Scovill says.
The huge doors of the Steel Mill were kept open to keep air circulating, shutting only when closing up at night and for the performance. Finally, there were follow-up protocols, and if anyone that was there tested positive for the Coronavirus, full contact tracing was in place.
“Honestly, I felt very responsible in every way,” Scovill says, of the production. “I felt responsible for the health of everyone who worked on the show, their mental health in the stress involved with leaving their house for this, and I hope it doesn’t sound silly, but I also felt responsibility to the industry. If anybody got sick from this first full production — well, that’s not the news the industry needs right now.”
He adds that he is grateful for the everyone who did work on it, as all appreciated the gravity and the stakes involved. (Paisley posted a great short video on his Facebook page of all the precautions taken to prepare for this show and, at one point references the strict mask policy, joking, “everybody looks like bank robbers.” (To watch, go to www.plsn.me/BP-FB.)
Scovill commented on the different vibes achieved by Paisley’s full arena production and Lady Antebellum’s more intimate, scaled-down show. “Brad wanted to feel the full sound, and Lady A wanted it more streamlined,” Scovill says. “Both were great, and it was a great juxtaposition. It showed that The Steel Mill is available and suitable for any type of show any artist wants to put on.
“It’s going to be a while before we can get back to business as usual, and a lot of the major players are taking a wait-and-see approach to performing,” Scovill concludes, “but in the meantime, we’re going to continue to be available for shows. We’re basically a turnkey solution.”
Brad Paisley Bud Light Seltzer Sessions
Venue: The Steel Mill, Nashville, TN
MooTV Crew
- Executive Producer: Scott Scovill
- Exec. VP/GM: Jason Rittenberry
- Project Manager: Travis Walker
- Screens Director: Bailey Pryor
- Playback Operator: Joe Monahan
- LED tech: Quentin Voglund
- Camera Operators: Jessica Quinn, Von Galloway, Jonathan Paine, Tom Zeleski, Larry Boothby
- Jib Operator: Mike Breece
- Robotic Camera Operator: Jeff Horr
- EIC: Tim Monnig
- Camera Shader: Eric Heidel
- Engineer Assistant: Evan Byron
- Technical Director: Milojko Dobrijevich
Video Gear
- 350 Triton 5.9mm LED tiles
- 32 Gtek 15 mm LED tiles
- 32 Astera AX1 wireless LED tubes
- 1 Dataton watchout media server
- 1 Ross Carbonite 2 ME switchers
- 7 Hitachi SK 1300 cameras
- 3 Panasonic HE 130 robotic cameras
- 1 30′ Jimmy Jib
