E! Reality Show ‘Opening Act’ Gives Tour Support for the Stars
The E! television network has announced a new reality show called “Opening Act” for this summer that will allow unsigned musicians to compete for the chance to open for some of the biggest musicians working today.
The show will be produced by “American Idol” producer Nigel Lythgoe, and will gather the talent that will appear on the show from the internet. Lythgoe has established a team including Mary J. Blige, “Rock Mafia” producer Antonina Armato and himself that will scour the internet for random videos of unknown stars and will give the best ones a chance to open for an established star.
And he’s established quite a lineup of stars that the winners of the competition will open for. Some that have been announced so far include Nicki Minaj, Rod Stewart, LMFAO, Brad Paisley, Gym Class Heroes, Jason Mraz and Jason Aldean, with more expected to be announced later.
Lythgoe spoke to both the New York Daily News and the E! network in further detail about the show.
“There is an extraordinary amount of untapped talent out there,” he told the NY Daily News. “But if you don’t know the right people or have the right connections, you may never be discovered. With ‘Opening Act,’ we are democratizing a notoriously impossible process.”
In his interview with E!, he got into the specifics of how the show will work.
“What we’re doing is looking down through the Web, the artists that have placed themselves on the Web… and we’re going to say, ‘Listen, you’re very good on the Web in your bedroom, in your front room, but in five days’ time, you’re actually opening for Nicki Minaj.”
Though this process will undoubtedly place loads of pressure on the inexperienced artists, Lythgoe says they’ve taken that into account, as well.
“These kids that have never done anything in their lives, never actually performed in front of anybody, have got five days to get themselves read,” he continued to E! “We’ve got an artist development team that will help them, but it’s going to be very exciting.”