Toby Keith - American Ride Tour - Mobile Production Pro

with a Toby Keith lookalike behind the wheel. Put against the backdropof the video wall it was hard to noticethat it was only the cab of the truck. As thatwas happening, a panel on the face of theriser baring the Ford logo opened revealingthe back of the truck where Toby was “sleeping”in the bed. Two contest winners fromthe audience came on stage, set a mic standin place and slapped Toby’s boots to wakehim up. Keith then did the first song sittingon the bed of the truck.Part of the notion of giving the audiencemore bang for the buck was the puttingTrace Adkins on the front end of the showand not only letting him have 50 minutes onstage, (compared to the more standard 30)but also allowing Adkins to bring on his ownlighting and video. That being said, they alsodidn’t want to cut Toby’s set. That meantall of Adkins’ gear was clearing the stagein nine minutes or less according to Milam.That only left 11 minutes for the rest of theset change in keeping with a strict 20 minuteset change edict.This is a bit of a tall order but obviouslydoable. However, it gets a bit more stickyfor a stage manager who has to take it overmid-tour as was the case for seasoned veteranAshley Swann. “Wrangling in mid-touris a bit of a different animal when the touralready has a life of its own,” Swann toldus. “But that’s not the real news. The thingwe’re out here to focus on is that the crowdwalks away happy. All the rest is just forconversation. When people spend 40 or 50hours a week taking crap from someone onthe job and they spend their money with us,we owe them everything we can give them.”Well spiced with a broad array of pyrolooks put up by Strictly FX, this show hadall the ear marks of a big fat rock show set24 mobile production monthly