Just before the start of his Cab in a Solo tour, Scotty McCreery discussed the inspiration behind his music. “I really tried to go back to what I grew up with and what I love: Traditional country music,” the multi-Platinum artist told a reporter, then added, “To me, the heart of country music is the storytelling.” In terms of stories, this immensely popular artist is telling some really engaging ones on his 16-city tour, the kind that make you want to sit around the campfire and listen for hours.
McCreery has a new album, Rise & Fall, that was released May 10. He co-wrote 12 of the 13 songs, including many that were created during a writing retreat in the North Carolina mountains with several of his songwriting buddies: Frank Rogers, Brent Anderson, Jeremy Bussey, Monty Criswell, Aaron Eshuis, Derek George. and Bobby Hambrick. In the live show, McCreery performs many of these new songs along with his fan favorite hits as well as covering some surprise classics that influenced him to spin an evocative narrative that touches on a range of human emotions. Moving seamlessly from foot stomping tunes, to soft ballads, including some personal tunes from the singer’s own life story, he conveys his stories in a heartfelt fashion that resonates with fans of all ages.
The power of McCreery’s performance is reflected in a richly textured production design by Drew Hornback, which, like the music it supports, features a strong narrative element. At its heart is a three-paneled blow-through video wall displaying captivating content created by filmmaker Jeff Ray, the Austin, TX creative responsible for many of McCreery’s videos, including “Five More Minutes”, “This is It”, “In Between”, “Damn Strait”, and “It Matters to Her”, as well as “Cab in a Solo”.
Adding visual impact to the video panorama are 18 CHAUVET Professional STRKE Array 2 fixtures supplied by Blue Crew Productions of Nashville. Hornback positioned six of the high output warm-white blinders behind each of the blow-through walls. Turned on and off at different points in the show, and run at different levels of brightness, the high-output blinders change the visual fabric of the wall to conjure up new moods for different songs. At some points, the backlighting on the blow-through panels creates a memorable translucent effect, which gives the video displays a transcendent look.
Speaking of this aspect of his design, Hornbak noted: “The big thing I heard in the design process was that Scotty wanted a big change for the future. In the past few years, the show was very lighting heavy and he wanted to make a change to add in some cool video aspects. I knew with the venues that Scotty was playing we needed to make a solution that was easy to deploy but also easy to transport in one semi. We created custom video carts and knew that we wanted to use the Strike Array 2 behind the blow thru video wall. My idea was to keep with the column theme in the panels with the columns of light. I really wanted to rely on clean lines in the whole design and allow the video to be a key element but also have the clean lines with lighting placement.”
Programmed by Alec Takahashi and Benji Treuil, with Alexander Lehman running the boards on the road, the lighting served up a wide range of looks that moved in perfect harmony to the stories McCreery told in song.
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