There’s only one month left until Maddie & Tae hit the road with Carrie Underwood, so this is serious crunch time. Meaning, time to practice, practice, practice so that the country duo can make Underwood proud, proud, proud.
To that end, Maddie Marlow and Tae Dye are preparing like they’ve never prepared before. At their last Chicago show, Marlow and Dye told me all about the seven steps they are taking to be ready, willing and able come May 1 in Greensboro, North Carolina.
“We both want to make Carrie proud, and our fans proud. So the whole thing has been a really collaborative process with us and our band,” Marlow told me, “with all these minds coming together. We are not at all thinking, ‘Our way or the highway.’ That would be so boring.”
Here’s what’s on Maddie & Tae’s schedule for the next 32 days:
1. Serious rehearsing:
“Lots of rehearsing with our band. We are preparing so differently than we’ve ever prepared for any of our other tours,” Dye said.
2. Blocking off the rehearsal stage:
“We’ve been taping off what the stage will look like, hoping that will help us navigate once we’re really on Carrie’s stage. Because we’ve never been on a 360-degree stage like this one,” she added of the blocking process used to determine when and where they should stand and move on stage.
3. Hiring the big guns:
“We hired a show director for the first time, so this time we are bringing in some big guns. We are direct support for Carrie, so we have to be badass,” Marlow said.
4. Practicing their glam routine:
“We’ve both learned how to do our own hair and make-up well over the past four years. We’ve even made YouTube tutorials about how to do our look for the stage,” Marlow said. See evidence of a tutorial here.
5. Prepping their stage threads:
“We’ll meet with our stylist before we go, and put together some cool looks with her. Wardrobe has to be up to par for all these shows,” Dye said, “but we have 11 people on a 12-bunk bus, so there is no room for extra people. It’s tight.”
6. Vocal exercising:
“We want to be very prepared for anything and everything, especially the singing. So we’ve been doing lots of vocal exercises,” she said.
7. Eating clean(er):
“We’ve started getting healthier, and eating as clean as possible,” she added. “We have to make sure we are always upping our game in everything we do.”
The duo will have time to do a run-through with fans in Las Vegas the night before the ACM Awards, when they perform at the ACM Decades show on Saturday (April 6) at the MGM Grand Hotel.
