Big Machine

Tonight in Las Vegas, Rascal Flatts kicks off their nine-show residency at The Joint at Hard Rock Hotel & Casino. Jay DeMarcus says the trio very purposefully set out to make the show they’re calling Rhythm & Roots very different from their 2015 run in Sin City.

“We did the full band thing last year and had a few background singers with us, and we felt like for this one we wanted to strip it way down and make it more about the three of us and our musical journey together, and sort of give people some snapshots as to how we got to where we are. And so it’s going to be a nice little musical ride, to kind of give people a picture of how it was when we very first started. The big band is gone. We’ve got two guys behind us. There’s only five of us onstage and it’s really nice to hear some of the different takes and the re-imagining of some of our older hits.”

While you can bet you’ll hear all the Rascal Flatts tunes you’ve come to love from Gary LeVoxJoe Don Rooney, and Jay, he believes they’ve managed to reinvigorate some of their best-loved songs.

“We’ve taken some of our hits that have been around forever and sort of rearranged ’em and put some new life into them,” Jay says. “It makes it really exciting for us to perform those old tunes in such a new way, too. It’s a really unique experience and it’s been fun putting this show together because in years past, putting other tours together, you sit down and you just play the songs as they are on the record and try to find an interesting order to put them in. Whereas this one, we deconstructed everything from the bottom up.” 

So far, it’s been a great week for the trio. On Tuesday, the Hard Rock showed their loved for the band by dedicating a permanent case of their memorabilia in the property’s Casino Tower. On Monday, Meghan Trainor, who co-wrote their current hit “I Like the Sound of That,” took home the Best New Artist trophy at the Grammys.

Rascal Flatts’ Rhythm & Roots residency continues through March 5.

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