Carrie Underwood at home in the spotlight
Before Carrie Underwood became a contestant on “American Idol” in 2005, middle America’s county fairs had been her biggest stage. Then she stepped into Simon Cowell’s national spotlight. Her audience instantly grew from dozens to millions and, with it, came the scrutiny from viewers lobbing criticism at her for “just standing there."
Eleven years later, Underwood nightly helms one of country music's most visually adventurous and elaborate productions, belting out hit after hit surrounded by fireworks and lasers, expertly navigating four in-the-round stages while engaging audiences at every side and corner of the arena.
"It's a huge undertaking, but it's a great show," Underwood told The Tennessean. "I still feel like I’m working towards being comfortable in my own skin as a performer. I’ll probably never get there. I should always be striving for new goals and challenging myself, and it’s good to be nervous because that means you care."
Underwood will bring her The Storyteller Tour to Nashville’s Bridgestone Arena Thursday.
“She doesn’t need to hide, she’s great,” said Underwood’s longtime agent Jeff Frasco at Creative Artists Agency. “She is amazingly talented and her work ethic is second to none. Everything she does has a long term effect on her career. There’s no short term thinking when it comes to her.”
When Underwood started to conceptualize her arena tour, the mother to 18-month-old Isaiah thought more basic: children’s story time. She knew she wanted to name her tour after her album “Storyteller” and she said storytelling in its simplest form begins with a storyteller and a circle of listeners.
“You think of little kids on the floor and the teacher reading,” she explained. “It just kind of made sense to think about maybe doing the tour in the round.”
The tour isn’t simple. It takes 17 semi-trucks and eight buses to move the show from venue to venue.
“When we started putting it all together, it was intimidating, to be honest,” Underwood said. “You’re not just entertaining the people in front of you. You have to do 360 degrees of entertainment.”
The idea appealed to Underwood because it was an opportunity to get closer to more of her fans, which is something she’s consistently built elements into her show to accomplish. On the Play On Tour, Underwood dreamed up a flying truck to move her around the arena so she could see more faces. During The Blown Away Tour, she had a flying secondary stage. For this tour, she has the four stages completely surrounded by fans.
“It’s frustrating sometimes when I am on one end of the arena and I can only see the first few rows in front of me and the rest is this one entity,” she said. “So we always tried to give me those moments where I could see other people and get to them and hear people singing and having fun. That’s just giving me energy. I feel like it just flies by because everything is put together so well.”
Underwood doesn’t want to reveal too much of the show, but as is typical in her tours Storyteller boasts elaborate staging along with stripped-down moments and multiple costume changes that provide an element of surprise at every date. Underwood starts the planning process for her stage attire with a rack of clothes before the tour and starts conceptualizing. She picks out what she likes and then thinks, “If we shorten this and take the sleeve off that? Can we add rhinestones? Can we add chains? Can we turn this dress into a shirt?” For this tour, she worked with with Emmy-winning costume designer Marina Toybina.
“Everybody weighs in on ideas,” she explained. “It’s all things that make me feel good about myself and that I’m comfortable performing in. We do some things that are edgier, we do some things that are prettier. I always have different options depending on how I’m feeling. There’s different combinations.”
Billboard ranked “The Storyteller Tour” as the top country tour for the first half of 2016 a time period during which she performed for close to 600,000 people in 47 cities and seven countries. The success earned the singer her first nomination from the Country Music Association for Entertainer on the Year. It’s recognition many in the country music industry believe was a long time coming for Underwood, who has hosted the CMA Awards with Brad Paisley since 2008.
"Carrie has a consistency of excellence," said Beverly Keel, chair of the recording industry department at Middle Tennessee State University. "Carrie is elegant and classy and poised. She doesn't make one wrong move, ever. Her faith and her family guide her life. This is her time and it's so exciting to watch because you can see now she's enjoying it."
Make no mistake — Underwood wants to win Entertainer of the Year.
“I cannot tell a lie, and that one was just really important,” she said from a tour stop in the Pacific Northwest. The day, she described, was beautiful and she walked to a nearby park with Isaiah during the interview. The toddler could be heard playing in the background and it was he who she was with when she found out she finally received her Entertainer of the Year nomination. She is also up for Album of the Year, Female Vocalist of the Year and Musical Event of the Year for her collaboration with Keith Urban on his song “The Fighter.”
Underwood points out she hasn’t won a CMA Award in eight years.
“I don’t want to say that I got used to it, but a little bit,” she said. “It ended up being kind of a blessing so I could just realize what we do is all about and being out on the road and seeing people and having people sing your songs back to you and just seeing the crowds grow and grow and grow and feeling stronger in myself as a performer and as an entertainer. It’s really incredible to have that nomination, but I think it was kind of good for me to be able to focus on other things.”
Reach Cindy Watts at 615-664-2227 or ciwatts@tennessean.com.
IF YOU GO:
What: Carrie Underwood’s “Storyteller Tour - Stories in the Round” also featuring The Swon Brothers and Easton Corbin
Where: Bridgestone Arena, 501 Broadway in Nashville
When: 7 p.m. Thursday, Sept. 22
Tickets: $45-$75 through Ticketmaster, 1-800-745-3000 or www.ticketmaster.com.
