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

We all loaded up in our vehicle and traveled Northwest about 35 minutes to get to the venue.  Earlier, it had rained at the venue and they were expecting another round before the end of the evening.  Well, that round came in a bit more than halfway through Gary’s set.  We got drenched!  It was refreshing though as we have been hitting heat records all last week.

We did get to catch Corey Smith and hear his great new, fast rising single “The Baseball Song.”  Corey has been singing on a KSM9 for a while now and still enjoying the PSM900 ear systems.

Gary Allan had spent a good part of the day doing meet and greets for all his Nashville based friends.  Just before he hit the stage, we caught a few minutes with him. My son William loves his single “Watching Airplanes”  and “Smoke Ring in the Dark” is a favorite in our family.  Gary is still using a UR2/SM58 wireless and is still one of the most recognizable, interesting voices in Country music.

While we would have loved to have stuck around for the rest of Gary’s set but the rain sent us running for our vehicle.  We were drenched, laughing, and had a great time.  Life is good.

Ryan

North Nashville, TN

I was invited to come out and check out Luke Bryan’s newly updated touring set.  Bigger PA, more lights, and a really cool new mic stand with which to perch his recently chromed UR2/SM58 mic.

I had to wait a couple of days to blog about this as he would debut his new stand to the public on the weekend.

So the question is:  What design would you put at the bottom of YOUR mic stand?

I know this one is short and sweet but the pics say it all. Catch Luke on tour right now!

Ryan

Bridgestone Arena – Nashville, TN

The big rock show!!

How many hits can you pack into one night, especially with 3 super groups from the 80′s?  I was excited to find out as this is the era I grew up in.

Endorsing drummer Mark Schulman has reunited with Foreigner on this tour and it was great to catch up with him. I was escorted backstage for the Foreigner meet and greet and Mark was already busy with his bandmates posing for pics with fans.  I grab a few bites of finger foods while they finished up and joined Mark back in their dressing room. We chatted about some of the new gear Shure has out, specifically the new Beta 98AMP’s.  He loves the way they sound!

Since it was close to show time, he escorted me out to the house and I grabbed my seat in time to catch the last few songs in Night Ranger’s set.  I had caught Night Ranger over 12 years ago in Indiana, back when I lived in the Chicago area.  They are still as good today.  They closed their set out with “(You Can Still) Rock in America.”  Awesome!

Foreigner ran hit after hit.  Mick Jones was unfortunately sick this week so they had a fill in guitarist who did his homework.  Mark was slammin’ ‘em out and it was great to watch him play with so much energy.

Journey closed the show, again hit after hit along with a few new ones.  This was the first time I had caught the group with their new lead singer Arnel, who was signing on a UR2/SM58 wireless.  The background vocals were Beta 87C’s.  It was great to hear all of the hits live although, I really missed hearing “Escape” and “Only the Young”,  a couple of my favorites.  With the resurgence of “Don’t Stop Believin”   due to The Soprano’s and Glee, there was quite a range of age groups who attended the show and sang along.  It was great to see this show almost sold out at a large scale arena.  Definitely a good pairing of groups.

For their last song, the group was joined on stage by Joe Don Rooney, guitarist with Rascal Flatts.  He and Neal Schon traded solos at the end.

To say I was air-drumming to MOST of these songs would be an understatement!  This was part of my training as a musician and I am so thankful for each lesson I learned from these groups.  Thanks guys!

Ryan

Nashville, TN

2011 marks not only the 40 year Anniversary of the CMA Music Fest but also the 10th year of the Shure office in Nashville. I have been fortunate to be able to attend this show since Shure opened the Nashville Artist Relations office in 2001. It has been great to be able to support this event and meet with all of the great people who have put it on over the years. It has changed over the years as they are now taping many of the performances for later inclusion in a 2 hour television special. Roughly half of the artists that performed at LP Field during the 4 day event are either Shure Artists or used Shure on vocals. OK, why not, let’s list them all!

Shure Artists:

Sara Evans
Brad Paisley
Dierks Bentley
Little Big Town
Martina McBride
Trace Adkins

Josh Turner, Dailey & Vincent  and Rascal Flatts

Shure users:

Ashton Shepherd
Chris Young
The Band Perry
and The Janedear Girls

It’s always great to see the crews for each of these artists and meet new faces and engineers.   This show is the perfect place to get lots of business accomplished.  Although it’s very hot and the hours are long, I do look forward to this show every year.

Each night, the stadium filled up with enthusiastic crowds and there were several guest artists who showed up to sing along.  Alabama showed up on Thursday night to perform with Brad Paisley, American Idol winner Scotty McCreery joined Josh Turner on a song, Martina McBride and Idol runner-up Lauren Alaina made a great pairing on Martina’s song “Anyway“, Little Big Town joined  Rascal Flatts for an awesome display of vocal harmonies on a medley of classic rock tunes.

As customary, each night started off with the singing of our National Anthem.  On Saturday night, Shure Artists’ Dailey and Vincent sang their version which is THE BEST version that I have ever heard.  I’m sure it will be up on the internet soon enough,  keep an eye out for it.

Some of the products that were prominently used throughout the shows included the UR2/SM58 and the UR2/KSM9 for many of the lead and backing vocals, the Beta 98AMP for toms, a few KSM313 ribbon mics on amps  and well as many KSM32′s for overheads and guitar amps.

The annual appearance of rain was broken this year but it was a close one on Saturday evening.  It cooled off quite a bit (which was welcomed by some) but never a drop.

So comes to a close another great year of artists performing at this wonderful event.  Speaking of Anniversaries, my wife and I celebrated 17 years on Saturday!  Looking forward to many more!

Ryan

The Factory in Franklin, TN

Out of respect to CMT and the request to not shoot photos during the show, I’m only going to give you taste of what you are in store for should you choose to tune in when this show airs.

Luke Bryan‘s songs have consistently lived high on the Country charts for the past few years.  He has a great knack for connecting with his fans and his voice is very recognizable.  The Doobie Brothers have an amazing history – so many great hits.  Yours truly grew up listening to the Vinyl edition of The Best of The Doobies through an amazing set of Zenith speakers.  Those warm tones of the acoustic guitar through the speakers when “Listen To The Music” came on will forever be a warm spot in my musical heart. (Thanks Mom and Dad!)

Putting these two great acts together created a very exciting evening that all will soon enjoy.  Hearing The Doobies sing their iconic background vocals and share leads on Luke’s songs was awesome.  Luke’s voice fit right in as he shared leads on the Doobies’ tunes.  Of course, Luke’s UR2/SM58 wireless mic was front and center the whole evening.

Don’t miss this show when it comes on CMT.  It was great to watch it all come together.

Ryan