Gabby Barrett prepping for massive Pittsburgh crowds

Pittsburgh Post-Gazette

Gabby Barrett is super excited about her next few weeks.

“Oh, my gosh, it’s insane,” she says. “I’m going to give you the layout of what my schedule looks like: I’m in Nashville right now. I’m going to go home, do the thing with Luke Bryan, then the next morning I fly to LA for three days, then I fly back to Pittsburgh for the Fourth of July, then the next morning I fly back to LA for rehearsal.”

So, to break that down, the 18year-old Munhall native who came to national fame this spring as a finalist on “American Idol” is in Nashville this week writing songs. On Saturday, she will step out on stage at Heinz Field to duet with “Idol” judge Luke Bryan, then she comes back to headline the Fourth of July fireworks festivities in Point State Park, Downtown.

It will be the biggest crowd she’s ever played to in her hometown.

“There’s supposed to be like 100,000 people down there, a crazy amount, so I’m really excited, and I get to do it with my band, so I’m really excited to put on a show there that nobody will forget.”

Having gone through the rigors of “American Idol,” where she placed third, she’s feeling comfortable about handling crowds.

“I think ‘American Idol’ has prepared me for anything,” she says. “I did perform at some venues before ‘American Idol,’ but the crowds keep getting larger the more I continue.”

They will vary in size on the twomonth American Idol Tour, which begins in Redding, Calif., on July 11 and will hit her neighborhood, at the Carnegie of Homestead Music Hall, on Sept. 13.

“It’s more about fun now than competition,” she says of the tour, “and everyone gets along so well, which makes it nice. There’s a lot of stuff to rehearse. There will be a lot of groups, a lot of duets, some single stuff. Not as difficult as it was on ‘American Idol.’”

A week after “Idol” wrapped, she made her musical intentions clear with “Jesus and My Mama,” a hard-rock country song she wrote in the vein of Miranda Lambert or Carrie Underwood.

“I like to write and sing music that has more attitude to it and a little edge rather than a twangy country [style]. It’s different than Taylor Swift,” she says, referring to the superstar’s early work. “More like a Miranda Lambert vibe: ‘bad-a’ country music. And that song is just about how all the