Held at the MGM Grand Garden Arena, with several segments over at the Orleans Arena, Las Vegas was again overrun by the most loyal fans in music.  People were hanging out everywhere to catch a glimpse and possibly an autograph of their favorite stars.  As in years past, we got to hang out behind the scenes and check in with all of the engineers and A2′s who work so hard to make this show happen.  By we, I mean one of my Shure Associates, Jenn Liang-Chaboud and myself.  Jenn works for Market Development and has done a fabulous job at maintaining many key relationships on the West Coast and in Vegas.

We arrived on Wednesday and made a few visits to some local shows, namely Blue Man Group and the Shania Twain show.   The folks at Blue Man gave us a quick behind the scenes tour, which was amazing.  So much creativity and design goes into the many “out of the box” ideas that they create.

Thursday, April 4 was the first rehearsal day for the awards show.  If you caught the show, you saw the amazing performance by Shure Artist Little Big Town of their new single “Your Side of the Bed.”  Today, they just planned to rehearse the acrobats. The group showed up to watch and ended up singing along with the track.  Karen said to the crew “Please forgive our vocals on this as we have no ear systems.”  They were RIGHT ON PITCH!  Such talent!

Next up was Shure Artist Hunter Hayes rehearsing his new single “I Want Crazy.”  For those of you who don’t know Hunter, he learned and played over 30 instruments on his current album as its sole performer.  Quite a feet and he played them well!  This segment would segue into his introduction of the legendary Stevie Wonder, who would join Hunter and band on stage for “Sir Duke.”  Hunter and Stevie had met previously and discussed performing together one day.  That day would be April 7, 2013.  Hunter uses a UR2/SM58 on tour and that’s what he and Stevie used on the show.

The day closed with the legendary George Strait who, for this performance, also used a UR2/SM58.  He would later be joined by Garth Brooks on stage, who used the same, for a tribute to Dick Clark.

Friday Morning, we headed to the Orleans Arena to visit with Shure Artist Brad Paisley and crew. Brad would be hosting the Fan Jam concert on Sunday after the awards show.  In addition, Brad performed several slots on the show, including with Hunter and Shure Artist Dierks Bentley. Brad and Dierks both sang on a UR2/beta 58.    After that, we headed back to MGM to catch Kelly Clarkson’s rehearsal of her new single “Baby Don’t Rush” – such a great song!

Following Kelly’s rehearsal, co-hosts Blake Shelton and Shure Artist Luke Bryan were joined on stage by the Pistol Annie’s and Shure Artist Sheryl Crow for the show’s opening number called “Boys Round Here.”  Both Luke and Sheryl were on UR2/SM58′s.

Saturday’s rehearsal featured a number of Shure Artists including Dierks Bentley (UR2/SM58), Little Big Town (UR2/KSM9HS), Florida Georgia Line (UR2/SM58), The Band Perry (UR2/KSM9HS and UR2/SM58) and then Hunter Hayes w/Stevie Wonder.

All Artists on the show used the PSM1000 system for ear monitors, which were provided by ATK Audiotek in addition to the UHF-R systems.

Shure Artists that took home awards that night included: Luke Bryan – Entertainer of the Year, Little Big Town – Vocal Group of the Year, and Florida Georgia Line – New Artist of the Year.

This was a fabulous trip and it is always a pleasure to be able to maintain these great relationships and show our support at these events.

Ryan

PSM1000'S

Luke Bryan & DR. Pepper

SM57's on Brad Paisley's cabinets

UHF-R at Orleans Arena

PSM1000 packs

ACMA's from Front of House

Jeff Peterson (FOH), Ryan Smith, and Steve Anderson (Announce Mix)

Brad Paisley at Orleans Arena

Luke Bryan's Kit

There are so many elements that contribute to putting on an awards show like the GRAMMYs.  To list every aspect would take too long so we’re going to focus on our side of this trip.

As everything usually comes together at the last minute for this show, we sent out a nice compliment of Shure mics to supplement what sound company ATK Audiotek already had in stock. Appearing for the first time on this show was the Beta 181/C condenser mic. We sent 20 of those and saw several get used on tympani (The Beach Boys) and occasionally on drum overheads. We also sent a few of the KSM313 ribbon mics, one of which prominently appeared on John Paul White’s guitar amp during The Civil Wars short but very effective performance in the show.

We were also very pleased to learn early on that the PSM1000 ear monitor systems would be the exclusive system for the show this year. There were plenty of bodypacks on hand for the performers and many of the crew people made a point to let us know how well the system was working for them.

Watching the rehearsal and then the performances over the course of 4 days, there were many highlights for us that sounded amazing in the house, thanks to both Jeff Peterson who finely tuned the PA and Ron Reeves who mixes the acts so well.  The Beach Boys segment featuring Maroon 5 and Foster The People was quite a thrill to hear live in the house. Each group nailed the original harmonies, it was one of the highlights of the evening. The other was seeing The Civil Wars perform on this broadcast. They have quickly become a respected group that continues to impress well-established artists like Adele, Taylor Swift and now Coldplay, who Tweeted that they are now fans of the group.

The Glen Campbell tribute featured newly signed artists The Band Perry who sang “Gentle On My Mind.” It was great to see Glen having so much fun on stage in light of his ongoing battle with Alzheimer’s.

It was especially gratifying to have the industry standard SM58 open this years’ show in front of Bruce Springsteen and then have Sir Paul McCartney close the show on a wired Beta 58A. You can’t get more Rock and Roll than that!

Seeing the same crew that has been doing this successfully for so many years is always a wonderful part of this trip. Maintaining those relationships and letting them know we are there for support is a vital part of attending this show as well as talking with them about our products. There were a lot of people who have not had the opportunity to try the PSM1000’s out. Thanks to ATK Audiotek and the monitor engineers for this show, Mike Parker and Tom Pesa, over 20 acts were exposed to the new standard in monitoring.

Special thanks go out to Michael Abbott who is the audio coordinator for the show, John  Harris and Joel Singer with Music Mix Moblie, who take care of the music mix that goes out to television and Eric Schilling who shares music mix duties with John Harris. This years’ show was monumental in size and every year, it just keeps getting better and better!

- Ryan, Cory and Jenn

Bridgestone Arena – Nashville, TN

Having been down in Nashville for 10 years now, it is always great to be able to attend this awards show.  It’s a reunion for both a lot of our Nashville contacts but also some of our East and West Coast based contacts as well.  I get to hang with Michael Abbott, one of the Audio Producers for this and many other TV shows and  J. Mark King, who does the production mix for the Academy of Country Music Awards also comes out to do this show.  There’s Steve Anderson, who swaps out the input boxes between each act as well as the engineers from Music Mix Mobile (John Harris, Jay Vicari and Joel Singer) who mix the music for the show.  The Nashville crews and the crews from each coast all dig in together to get over 20 performances on the air.  Once the show is on, it’s amazing to watch it all happen.  Even though most of this crew has been doing shows like this for years, they are always looking for ways to improve and present the best show for millions of viewers.

The same goes for Shure!

This year, Shure would play an even bigger role as we have a new series of personal monitor systems to present to artists.  The PSM1000 was about to make its appearance on this show for the first time.  Was I nervous? Not at all.  The system has been out there for a while now and been tested in some high profile settings.  Monitor engineer Jason Spence had just used it 3 weeks ago with Alabama and it passed with flying colors.  The system was ready and so were we!   Jason had been speaking with Shure about wanting to use this system on this show for months.  He told Mike Parker, also a monitor engineer for this and many other shows, that he planned to have units there.  Mike, also a beta tester, would not settle for anything less on his side as well.  When all was said and done, ATK Audiotek out of California shipped 14 channels for this show as well as sending a rack of systems out for the Latin Grammies that same week!

Are you as excited as we are??  Seeing our packs labeled up for use with names like Taylor Swift, Lionel Richie, and Ms. Piggy is pretty exciting.

Jason commented on how beneficial it was for them to be able to adjust the output power of the transmitters so they could reach an artist clear across the arena, providing them with dropout free signal.  That is very important to an artist who is performing in front of a live audience and in turn to millions watching at home.  If their signal cuts out, it can be a real mood killer for an artist in the heat of the moment.  Having those 2 antenna’s on the beltpack makes an amazing difference!

As far as artists on this show, we are always delighted when the list of performers comes in and we see a great representation of Shure Artists.  Like Martina McBride who performed her new single “I’m Gonna Love You Through It” on a wired SM58 and Luke Bryan, who worked the stage with his custom chromed UR2/SM58 wireless on “Country Girl (Shake It For Me).”    We also saw a great Glen Campbell Tribute perfomed by endorsers Vince Gill and Brad Paisley, joined by Keith Urban – all on Shure wireless. Both Lionel Richie and Kenny Loggins requested Shure to use on their performances!

New to the Shure family is The Band Perry, who performed on custom painted Super 55′s and went on to pick up 3 CMA Awards that night!   Sara Evans sang her most recent big hit “Stronger” on a UR2/Sm58. Taking home the coveted Entertainer of the Year award that night was Taylor Swift who sang on a UR2/Beta 58A.

Endorser Luke Bryan also co-hosted the red carpet with Ellen before the show.  His FOH engineer, Pete Healey, came by earlier that day to see if we could find him a Shure wired mic that Luke could use for that broacast.  We found an Sm58 and thanks to Pete, another TV spot!

During the show, I ran into many artists, engineers, and managers backstage.  It’s always a great time to catch up with them as they are usually out on the road or busy releasing a new record.  I was waiting  around backstage each time The Band Perry picked up an award to congratulate them.  I also talked with Rascal Flatts drummer and endorser Jim Riley, who was getting set to travel up to Indianapolis for the Percussive Arts Society International Convention (PASIC) to do a drum clinic later in the week.  I would be traveling in the same direction right after this show.

After the awards show concluded, I went up to Jason Spense’s monitor “world” and talked with him and his techs about how the show went.  Thumbs UP all around.  One tech even commented that they received no complaints about dropouts or bad mixes, which he mentioned was very unusual for this show.   That brought a big smile to my face!

A BIG THANK YOU to Mike Abbott, Jason Spence, Mike Parker, J. Mark King, John Harris, Jay Vicari, Joel Singer, Steve Anderson, and so many more for an amazing job.  Thank you to the artists who continue to rely on Shure every night they step on stage.  Most of all, thank YOU for spending your time on our blog site and reading this blog.  Send it along to a friend !

Take care and keep coming back for more!  (If you want more RIGHT NOW, here’s our press release on the show and the amazing PSM1000 system.)

Ryan