Country couple Tim McGraw, Faith Hill begin run at Venetian

They share at least one trait with the Rat Pack.

"I've worked in this business for a long time," says Robert Deaton, producer of Tim McGraw and Faith Hill's "Soul2Soul" shows. "There are superstars that when they walk into the room, they change how the room feels.

"I'm sure it was that way with Frank Sinatra or Elvis Presley. When they walked into the room, you knew it."

And so it is, Deaton says, of the married singers he has known for much of their careers. "That's how they are individually, so when you put them together it's a whole different level. Each one of them has charisma and stage presence."

They also have three children.

"The Venetian worked around our kids' school schedule," Hill explained at the kickoff news conference that announced the shows last August. "That is a very big key factor."

Together, they add up to a win-win for the show that debuts today: The Venetian gets 10 weekends of an arena-level concert draw, sure to be slam-dunk sell-outs in an 1,800-seat theater (the one last occupied by the "Phantom" Broadway musical).

And country's singing couple gets a chance not just to perform together, but in a new way.

"It's an opportunity to be creative in a way we've never experienced before together," Hill said in August.

All involved are quick to point out that while the name "Soul2Soul" carries on, the show will be a big departure from the duo's arena tours of that name, which last played Las Vegas in 2007.

Back then, the two spent most of their time in separate sets, so much so they had different tour managers, sound engineers and lighting designers.

"It just made it easier that way," says Roy Bennett, who was involved both then and now as production designer. "This is purely about the two of them and one band," with a stage that is "neutral."

"This show is all about us together," McGraw said in August.

Part of the lure, Hill stressed then, was "the idea for us to be able to create a show that's so unlike anything he and I have done together."

The Las Vegas shows - booked for 10 weekends through April, with an uncertain future after that - won't follow the Garth Brooks school of acoustic guitars on a bare stage.

Both singers have been on the edge of the "new country" movement since 1996, when McGraw rode a descending light pod to a steel platform stage, and Hill changed outfits five times within a one-hour set.

"Tim and Faith are very modern people in their style and the things that they like - fashion, architecture, all that stuff," Deaton says. "They like to push things as far as they can, without going so far out of the box that it loses people. ... I was just trying to make something that is their personality but doesn't look out of place in the theater."

Bennett has designed stages for acts as diverse as Paul McCartney and Nine Inch Nails. Deaton is the television producer of the annual Country Music Association Awards. Both say they have known McGraw and Hill long enough to know, as Deaton puts it, "what they do and do not like."

However, both producers say it's very refreshing to create a stage design for a theater show, one that doesn't revolve around camera close-ups of the stars on giant video screens, and can use video and moving scenery to more stylized effect.

"Almost every song has a completely different look to it," Bennett says. Pieces of stage scenery ride in and out, and video is used to portray "the more detailed side of the emotion that's going on in a song."

But the tone of the show will be less like the arena tours and a little more like those Brooks nights at Wynn Las Vegas. "We want people when they leave the show to go, 'You know what? We were really able to spend time with them. I got to know them a little bit more. I got to know who Tim and Faith are as people,' " Deaton says.

The producer's biggest challenge was going through both singers' hits to decide what could be left out and still leave room for some surprises and cover songs, which both have been known for throughout their careers.

The two first shared a Las Vegas arena stage in a 1996 concert at the MGM Grand Garden. That was before they were known to be an item - they certainly were by the time they returned for Andre Agassi's "Grand Slam for Children" benefit that September - and she was billed as the opening act.

The Review-Journal's review of that show noted that when they teamed to cover The Tony Rich Project pop hit "Nobody Knows," they "generated some real steam - the type the computerized lighting and smoke machines can't duplicate."

The two married later that year and are sustaining one of the longest-lasting marriages in show business. "There's certainly no formula, that's for sure," McGraw said at the August news conference.

His spouse added some basic advice: "Walk this life together. Like the person that you love. It's important to laugh a lot."

Asked about their pet peeves of one another, Hill said, "If he answered this question truthfully, he'd probably say that he wished I was less Type A."

"Not right now, when we're putting this show together," he replied.

Both said they aren't losing sight of The Venetian show as "one of those moments of time," as she put it. "It'll be gone, but we're so fortunate to have the opportunity to do it."

Contact reporter Mike Weatherford at mweatherford@
reviewjournal.com or 702-383-0288.