Eric Church's crew shows tour behind the scenes

They call themselves "The Outsiders," a family of 72 who work 20 hours a day to give fans the best four hours a night.

They are the band and crew who make it possible for fans worldwide to experience Eric Church's The Outsiders tour, which made its stop in Nashville Saturday night at Bridgestone Arena.

"Our job is better than your vacation," crew members Michael Joe Sagraves and Sambo Coats said simultaneously.

Coats, the tour's stage manager, said it's the crew's job to make the fans not just love the show but live it.

"We can make you see it, we can make you hear it and we can make you love it," he said.

Setup begins hours before the show. Set carpenter Michael Todd said the crew's morning typically starts with marking points on the stage so crew members know where to place equipment. Building the stage begins at 10 a.m and is completed in 21/2 hours with the help of two other set carpenters and about 18 to 20 stagehands.

The two-hour set list of songs changes every night, and the responsibility of making sure all the instruments are tuned and ready at all times falls on the backline department.

"Around the three-quarter mark (of the show), he comes down the stage during the poem before 'Devil, Devil' and will line out the last eight or so songs, but we don't know what we are doing until he tells us," said lead guitar tech Sagraves.

When the song lineup changes, Jay Cooper adjusts his plan for video direction. There is a four-sided screen above the stage for the fans in the arena to see, and there are 13 cameras set up around the venue.

"Five of them are manned cameras, three robotic cameras and a couple of static cameras spread out," Cooper said. "There's a routine for the big songs but at the end we just have to roll with it. We don't know what to anticipate."

There are 13 large trucks that carry all the production equipment on the tour, and Coats' older brother, dock master William Coats, is in charge of overseeing the unloading and loading at each city.

"Load out is more intense than load in," William Coats said. "If something is coming out, I have to know where it goes, what truck it goes to and have to be able to tell anybody at any given time what case goes to what truck."

Finding the right crew members is crucial for a tour of this size, production manager Marc Earp said.

"We have a great relationship with our vendors, and they know us to the point of knowing what the camp is all about and try to accommodate us with people who they think are a right fit," Earp said.

With The Outsiders tour, the camp added 56 new, hires but it is clear to see that they are all one big road family.

"This camp is unlike any other. It's from the camaraderie, from the band, from the crew being with the band, the band being with the crew and the artist," Sambo Coats said.

Front-of-house engineer Billy Moore said The Outsiders tour is an experience unlike any other.

"It's always better when you go to Church."

Reach Maren Angus at 615-259-8010 and on Twitter @Maren_Angus.

The Outsiders Tour by the numbers:

72 band and crew members

15 trucks

9 buses

13 cameras

13 microphones

36 guitars

6 lights that rise

16 lights that fly

141 lightbulbs

13 spotlights