Luke Bryan Opens up About Challenges of Performing in Stadiums

Luke Bryan is currently crossing the country on his What Makes You Country Tour, which includes [...]

By Gayle Thompson

Luke Bryan is currently crossing the country on his What Makes You Country Tour, which includes several stadium shows, such as his recent performance at Dodger Stadium. That show made history, marking the first time for a country artist to headline and sell out the Major League Baseball stadium in Los Angeles.

By now Bryan is a seasoned performance veteran, but he admits the stadium shows take his energy, and expertise, to an entirely new level.

"Stadiums are a lot of work," Bryan tells Billboard. "You've gotta try to make 50,000 people feel like [they're in] an intimate setting and an intimate environment. When you're playing a 15,000-seat amphitheater, everybody's right in front of you. When I get done with a stadium, I feel like I ran a marathon. There's no just getting up there and nonchalantly making a stadium show happen. You gotta work hard at it."

The "Sunrise, Sunburn, Sunset" singer might be one of the hardest-working singers in country music, but the 42-year-old still can't believe the life he gets to live.

"It's pretty overwhelming," Bryan concedes. "Growing up in south Georgia and moving to Nashville, you think about markets like New York City and LA and all these far-off places. When you realize your music has touched people in these huge markets out here, it's very, very surreal, and when you have the opportunity to go into these iconic places and headline 'em and sell 'em out, it's hard to wrap your head around it and something that you try not to take for granted when it happens."

The large venues he gets to play in is a reminder to Bryan that his dreams were never quite large enough.

"I didn't want to be a stadium act one day -- I never wanted to dream that big," he admits. "I kept my dreams attainable. So everything from here on out is just kind of gravy for me."

Bryan is working harder than ever, but he might not keep up this pace for long. The American Idol judge reveals he might cut back on touring a bit, to spend more time with his family.

"We knew when I took on Idol that it was going to take up a lot of my offseason time," Bryan tells iHeartRadio. "Next year, I'm probably going to trim a few dates off the tour. I just kinda need to settle in that mold of not doing 100 shows a year and scale back a hair."

A list of all of Bryan's upcoming shows on his What Makes You Country Tour can be found at LukeBryan.com.

Photo Credit: Getty images/Scott Dudelson

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