Carrie Underwood
February 25, 2016
Verizon Center- Washington, DC
Washington D.C: Carrie Underwood definitely knows her way going about storytelling, being that it’s done through the lyrics of songs. During the Storyteller Tour, Underwood played for a little bit over an hour and 45 minutes on a stage that had to be seen in order to believe how massive it was.
Rather than a normal rectangular stage setup with a catwalk on one end of the room, Underwood’s stage took up almost the whole floor, set in the dead center and stretched from one end of the arena to the other. The stage was designed to rise in different ways and rotate throughout the set. At times, Underwood was the only person on the stage, being that the band was lowered into a bottom area of the stage while still playing. At other times, she was on a riser, eye level with the lower part of the seating areas, while the guitarist or fiddler were walking back and forth to each end of the arena.
The massive stage provided front-row seats for hundreds of fans, who stood up against the barricade . But it also meant that those who had the best seat in the house somewhat had the worst seat some parts of the show, as she was singing to the crowd on the other side and vice versa. Fortunately, Underwood hardly took a breath as she dashed from one end of the stage to the other. I have to give it to her, as she walked the entire stage side to side in high heels!
Seats that are normally behind the normal stage set up were also packed. With the stage being smack dab in the middle, nobody in the arena had a bad seat. The production was incredible! It had lasers, fireworks and explosions that had perfect timing to go with the flow of each song played
Underwood has always had an incredible voice, proving that on season 4 of American Idol. Underwood picked songs that really showcased her outstanding vocals in ways other than nailing impossibly long notes. Her most popular songs are country stompers that let her voice growl a little, with a sassy twang. For example, songs such as Undo It, Cowboy Cassanova and Renegade Runaway
The first opening act were the Swon Brothers, you may know them from The Voice. They were set up in the middle and played to one end of the arena, which had their backs to almost half the crowd for their whole 20-minute set. Easton Corbin, who was the second artist to open up, gave the fans a little more of a view, being that Corbin and his band were in the center of the stage that slowly rotated so everyone got a good view.
Review by: Alyssa Howell
Carrie Underwood
Easton Corbin
Swon Brothers
