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When: 7:30 tonight
Where: Qwest Center Omaha, 455 N. 10th St.
Tickets: $56.25, $40.25 or $25.25 at www.ticketmaster.com, Ticketmaster outlets or 800-745-3000
Information: www.qwestcenteromaha.com or 341-1500
He crashed into country music as the young upstart.
Today he's a star and one of the most established and popular artists around.
Tonight, Tim McGraw performs in Omaha for the first show in a lengthy arena tour.
The singer broke onto the scene with his sophomore album in 1994, which became the top-selling country record that year. Since then, the country star has piled up numerous hits, multiple awards and a whole lot of fans.
Married to fellow country superstar Faith Hill, McGraw also has had a successful — and acclaimed — acting career. Since 2004, he's appeared in seven films including “Friday Night Lights,” “Four Christmases” and “The Blind Side.”
Before embarking on the cross-country tour, McGraw called in from his home in Nashville to answer some of our questions.
Q: You're getting ready to do a big tour.
A: Biggest tour that I've done in awhile. It's a lot of shows. The boys (in the band) are excited. I'm excited. My kids (Gracie, 12, Maggie, 11, and Audrey, 8) are excited this summer to come out on the road. Everybody's pretty fired up.
I've been in the studio working on a new album, too. In January, I started a new album, a movie and getting ready for this tour, so it's going to be a pretty busy couple of months.
Q: You're doing mostly weekends on this tour, right?
A: Mostly weekends during school, but once school is over we'll hit it harder.
Q: So you get to spend a lot of time with your family?
A: Even days when the kids are in school, I won't leave home until 4 or 5 in the afternoon and fly in and do the show and then fly home. It's a lot of air time.
Q: What is the movie you're working on?
A: I'm working on a movie with Gwyneth Paltrow (called “Love Don't Let Me Down”). The great thing about it is that they looked all over the country for different places and ended up picking Nashville to shoot it. That made my life so much easier.
Q: You're quite a busy guy. How do you schedule everything including family, recording, movies, touring?
A: Family is right up there first — the kids' schedule and all of the things they're doing. After that, everything else sort of finds its place.
My wife is very good at organization, so she has all the kids' schedules, her schedule, her mom's schedule, all the extracurricular activities and my schedule all lined up.
Q: On this tour, are you going to do a lot of songs from your latest album?
A: Not a lot. It's tough. It's all over the place. Every time we make up a set list, we feel like we're leaving something out. And we are.
You just don't have enough time to get No. 1 records, Top 5 records, Top 10 records, our favorite records, album cuts. There's not enough time, so we finally have to put together something that we have fun playing.
There's a little of all of that. There's even a few things on an upcoming album that we're working on now. We always like to try that stuff and see how it falls.
Q: For “Southern Voice,” you used a lot of different songwriters. How do you choose which songs go on the album?
A: Same as always. I look for songs that really move me or songs that have something to say. You listen to a ton of songs, and you try to find the songs that fit what you're after.
Q: In the beginning of your career, you seemed to be the upstart in the country world. Over the years, you've become the established artist. How does that feel?
A: I always feel like I'm out there doing my thing. I don't ever feel like I'm part of any establishment. I don't really try to pay much attention to what's going on except for what I like to do. I feel like I'm learning and I've got a lot more to do.
Q: I asked readers for questions, and one reader, Jessica, wanted to know what it was like to have the Taylor Swift song, “Tim McGraw,” named after you.
A: It was interesting. My first thought was, “Have I gotten that old that new singers are singing songs about me?” But then I realized that she was in high school (at the time) so it didn't make me feel so bad.
I thought it was pretty cool that anybody would write a song with my name in it and have such success with it.
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