Travis Tritt and Brantley Gilbert
Tritt posted:
May 31 - Even though @BrantleyGilbert only gave us 8 feet of stage, we had a great time performing for everyone @BlueRidgeFest tonight. Great crowd!
May 31 - I've always treated my heroes and peers with respect. I've respected everyone from George Jones, Waylon and Charlie Daniels who opened.
May 31 - I doubt very seriously if @BrantleyGilbert knows how disrespectful his stage setup is to those who open for him. However, I'm just saying.
May 31 - Regardless of circumstances, I love performing for an appreciative audience. The folks make the show for me. Nobody appreciates y'all more!
May 31 - Make no mistake, @BrantleyGilbert is a fellow Georgia boy. He deserves whatever place he has carved for himself in the biz....
May 31 - All I'm saying is that his handlers/management should be a little more aware of how he comes off to those he works with. No disrespect.
May 31 - Everyone in this biz knows we can't please everyone, in spite of our best intentions. However, non of us can fix what we don't know is wrong.
May 31 - Know this. I've had openers from Trisha Yearwood, Dixie Chicks, Little Texas, Joe Diffie, Lynyrd Skynyrd & LeRoy Parnell over the years....
May 31 - ... And I've always personally made sure that they had all the stage space and production that they needed to put on the best show possible.
When one of Tritt's twitter followers posted, "Maybe when you were a headliner you didn't allow as much room as some of your opening acts would've liked?" Travis responded with "I've always been very hands on with my organization and always tried to make sure to give as much room as possible to openers."
While I get it that Travis might have felt slighted by having a smaller stage area than he prefers or is used to, I don't agree that taking it to twitter to be tried in the court of public opinion was a smooth move. If, in fact, he was directing the comments to Gilbert's handlers/management and they should be more aware of how it looks to the people he works with, then a phone call would have probably gone a lot farther. After all, he's Travis Tritt - a man with 25 years in the industry. To think that he couldn't get a member of Gilbert's team on the phone and would be put off by a receptionist or secretary is ludicrous.
