Brad Paisley: High-Tech Redneck

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Brad Paisley with his Top Male Vocalist and Video of the Year awards backstage at the 43rd Annual ACM Awards, Sunday, May 18, 2008 in Las Vegas, NV. Photo by David Vespie.


July 30, 2008 — Over the last decade, Brad Paisley has risen slowly to the upper echelons of the country-music business, earning a nomination earlier this year from the Academy of Country Music for Entertainer of the Year.

Part of the reason he’s hit that plateau is that Brad combines good songs and great musicianship with a big-production stage show, complete with massive lighting, some video gimmicks and staging that juts out into the crowd. Giving the fans a lot of bang for the buck is one of Brad’s goals.

"I've always believed in creativity," he told Dial-Global. "We're now at the point where no matter what we're doing, it costs about what it costs this year. We've got eight trucks full of crap driving down the road, as many lights as you really need. I don't need to add lights, I don't need to add effects. I don't really need bigger screens. What I need to do now is think of ways to use them differently, and we're coming up with those, which I think [is] fun... We're just beginning to really scratch the surface on what technology can do on these shows, and to try to do that tastefully and be creative is where we're gonna make this something unique."

Brad’s Paisley Party Tour, sponsored in part by GAC, also features Jewel, Chuck Wicks and Julianne Hough.

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