Jason Aldean Will Host a Major ‘Party’ for Fans
Jason Aldean, his band and crew are in a Nashville rehearsal facility this week working out the set list, production elements and more for his upcoming My Kinda Party tour, launching Friday (January 21). A handful of Nashville-based media folks were invited to come check out the rehearsals to sample what fans will be seeing and hearing over the next several months.
Walking into the cavernous warehouse, the rocking tones of Jason and his band running through a cover of Bon Jovi's 'Wanted: Dead or Alive' could be heard, and crew members were leisurely moving around the room checking out all of the final details and making sure everything was in proper working order. The production gear and staging equipment on this year's tour is much more elaborate than in previous years.
"When you first start touring, especially when you're just starting out, it's not like you can go out and carry all the things that you would like to have out there; that takes time," Jason tells The Boot. "For us, this is the first year to go out and really be able to carry full video and visually make it look cool and do things like that that we've never been able to do before. It wasn't that long ago that it was all of us with our amps stretched across the stage and a couple of lights and that was about it. Now, we're getting to go out and make it look huge. This is the first year we've really been able to go out and make it look the way we want it to [look]."
The Georgia native sings his latest single 'Don't You Wanna Stay,' which has already cracked the Top 20, with Kelly Clarkson. He answered the unspoken question of how he was going to perform that particular song live when his pop star partner popped up on the huge video screen behind the stage, giving the sense she was live, just not in person. Wearing a black short-sleeved top with shiny green and gold darts of material originating from her neckline, Kelly was right on cue and didn't miss a beat. Tossing a wave and a smile at the crowd, the lights on her faded when the song ended.
"Today is really the first time I've gone over the [song]," he explains. "A lot of this stuff will take shape once the show starts, figuring out where her little wave is and I can kind of introduce her where there's a little more interaction. It's cool.
"We were looking for a way to make [Kelly] a part of the show," Jason continues. "Obviously, she can't be here every night, and none of my guys come close to singing like that or looking like that, so we had to do something to make her a part of the show ... Like everything else, we're going to have to work out some of the kinks in it and get the timing right where it looks like she's almost live via satellite. And her part's on track[s], so I love the duet for the fact that if you mess up the song, you can only mess up half of it, so that's kind of cool."
Jason also ran through 'See You When I See You,' a cut on his latest album 'My Kinda Party,' along with the title track, complete with dueling lead guitars.
The lighting grid, full of white, green, blue and orange lights, was another spectacular piece to the puzzle for Jason. It had moving pieces and visual moods that will alternately calm and excite his audiences night after night.
Jason will kick off his My Kinda Party tour, which also features Eric Church and the JaneDear Girls, in Little Rock, Ark., January 21, and the 30-city trek is currently scheduled to wrap sometime in May. Check here for more details.
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