CHRIS YOUNG IS IN A WHOLE NEW ARENA
Coming Over tour finds that the singer has arrived
Get ready country fans: Chris Young is coming over.
Next year, the singer will embark on a tour of the East Coast and select other major markets.
The I’m Coming Over tour kicks off Jan. 21 in Lowell, Mass., and hits 13 cities including Philadelphia, Pittsburgh, Minneapolis and New York. The final show is Feb. 26 in Baltimore.
Things have changed since Young ’s first headlining tour three years ago in support of his third album, Liquid Neon.
“We were playing in theaters with 2,000 seats. Now we’re in the 5,000-seat range. That’s way different. When you’re going into small theaters ... you aren’t carrying as much production. It was like, ‘Hey, we’re gonna have lights onstage!’ Once you get into arenas and amphitheaters, it’s a different story. It’s like, ‘ How much video can we run?’ There’s a lot more involved in making sure it’s perfect and that it’s the show I want my fans to see.”
Young started to gain a following at 21 when he won the reality TV singing competition
Nashville Star. Now, at 30, after four album releases, six No. 1 singles, seven gold and platinum certifications and performances before sold-out crowds in Europe, Australia, Japan and South Korea, he takes a laid-back approach to life. He still speaks in a warm, slow Tennessee drawl and delights at poking fun at himself in conversation.
Young plans to open each night with enough of a bang to keep the momentum going throughout his 75 to 90 minutes onstage. He’ll do that with Underdogs, a song off his new album, I’m Comin’
Home, out Friday. “I’ve played it pretty close to the vest in 2015 as far as not doing any of my new stuff in advance,” Young says. “I wanted people to hear the actual album version before I started putting it into the show. But this was the exception because it’s big, it’s very uptempo with double guitars, and it just fits at the top.”
It’s also important to end the show appropriately, which for Young means breaking from the spectacular finishers that most artists deliver. “For a long time I closed with
Tomorrow, the biggest hit I’d had up to that point,” he says. “There’s a breakdown chorus that’s great for the crowd to sing along. This time, I’m moving it up in my set and I’m putting I’m Co
min’ Over at the tail end. There’s no video. It’s very simple lighting. It’s really just the song.
“But once you get to that last chorus, the audience is singing it loud. The minute I wrote that song, I knew I wouldn’t move around much when I performed it. The song lives best on its own.”
What happens before the star goes onstage is also critical. On his Liquid Neon Tour, Young made sure customers got their money’s worth by bringing his friend Thomas Rhett along as his opening act. This year, the responsibility goes to Cassadee
Pope. Like Rhett in 2012, she is a relatively new but fast-rising presence in country music whose trajectory began when she took first place in Season 3 of NBC’s
The Voice.
“One of my biggest responsibilities will be how to get everyone pumped up for Chris,” she says. “So I have to walk that fine line between being authentically who I am and thinking about what they’re going to react to the most.
“Chris’ fans cover a pretty big demographic, so I just need to look into their eyes when I’m onstage to figure out what they want.”