Who: Martina McBride with Trace Adkins
When: 7:30 p.m. Sunday
Where: Mid-America Center in Council Bluffs
Tickets: $29.75, $44.75, $59.75, or $100 for four tickets
Information: www.midamericacenter.com or 712-323-0536
Martina McBride has planned something big.
A veteran of many concert tours, McBride said she's been working hard to make sure her tour delivers a great show to fans.
“It's a big show. What we try to do this year is get to everybody in the audience. There really isn't a bad seat,” McBride said on the phone. “We just try to reach everybody and connect with everyone in the whole arena.”
The show will also include lots of songs from her most recent release, “Shine,” in addition to past hits.
“When I go out and tour for a new album, I usually don't include a lot of new material. (Fans) really want to hear the hits. They don't want the new stuff,” McBride said. “I feel like a lot of these songs fit better live than in the past. I love it.”
Her favorites from the new disc are “Wrong Baby Wrong” and “Walk Away.”
McBride has been a very popular, mega-selling artist, with six platinum-selling records as well as a million-selling Christmas album and a greatest hits record that sold 3 million plus.
But she thinks the Web has changed the music industry.
“Physical CD sales are down a lot. I don't know if we'll ever have another big album like ‘The Wall' or ‘Thriller' or whatever,” she said. “I don't think people think of music as an album anymore.”
For McBride, it means selling fewer albums and more singles.
“It's just changing before our eyes. For me, the heyday of making music and selling a ton of records and the excitement is a lot different,” McBride said. “My goal or challenge has always been, how do you move forward? How do you keep it fresh? How do you not use the same thing over and over?”
In order to keep things fresh, as she said, McBride tries to use material from the best songwriters. McBride listened to thousands of songs to come up with the 11 that she recorded for “Shine.”
“You have to keep looking until you find what you think is a great one. It's fun. It's a challenge,” she said. “I tend to go for the deeper songs and off the beaten path. I'm very picky and it's subjective, so what I think is a great song, you might hate.”
Contact the writer:
444-1557, kevin.coffey@owh.com
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