Strait Arrow

Remember the old Loverboy hit that goes “everybody’s working for the weekend”?

Well, George Strait isn’t everybody, even by pop-star standards.

In a unique approach to touring, the veteran country singer is taking his weekdays off and mounting a national, 18-concert stadium trek that finds him working only on the weekends.

Thus his George Strait Country Music Festival arrives Saturday at Edison International Field in Anaheim. Alongside him on the bill are Tim McGraw, John Michael Montgomery, Faith Hill, Lee Ann Womack, Lila McCann and Asleep at the Wheel in a 10-hour program. Outside the stadium will be Straitland: an area of midway attractions and subsidiary stages featuring new artists.

The tour’s promoter, Louis Messina of PACE Music Group, says he proposed the unusual itinerary to help Strait solve the conundrum facing all pop stars with a strong domestic streak: how to satisfy their fans without slighting their families.

“He has his priorities in order,” the Houston-based Messina said of his fellow Texan. “He was trying to figure out how to play to as many people as possible in as little time as possible.”

The current tour grew from a series of annual daylong festivals Strait has headlined since 1993 at the Alamodome in San Antonio. The concept crossed the Texas border for the first time in April 1997 when Strait headlined a daylong bill at the PACE-operated Glen Helen Blockbuster Pavilion near San Bernardino.

When that show drew 35,000 fans, Messina proposed a national stadium tour, meeting Strait’s specifications that he have weekdays off and that it be over in time for him to have the summer free with his wife and teenage son.

Mounting the tour on weekends only adds substantially to travel expenses and other touring costs. Normally, Messina said, stadium acts average 3 1/2 shows per week to cover costs and prime profits.

“He’s willing to sacrifice some money” for the sake of a sane schedule, the promoter said.

Still, the only way anybody is going to take a bath on Strait’s tour is if El Nino decides to attend--as it did on a drizzly opening day for the tour in Tempe, Ariz.

Messina said that the first four dates--Tempe, Tampa, New Orleans and Birmingham, Ala.--were sellouts that drew 44,000 to 63,000 fans each. Two shows preceding the Anaheim date, in Detroit and St. Louis, appeared to be close to selling out.

“With Detroit, I [was] thinking, ‘That’s Motown, not Mootown,” said Kate Des Enfants, director of marketing for PACE. “But [tickets for] that show went real quickly.”

Anaheim qualifies as It’s a Small World Town on Strait’s itinerary: Edison Field, with a capacity of 38,000 for the show, is the smallest stadium on the tour.

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It will be equipped with five video screens, but Strait, famous for his straightforward approach to performance, won’t be putting on the sort of dazzling display, with gigantic stage sets and pyrotechnics, that fans have come to expect from stadium tours by the likes of U2 and the Rolling Stones.

“You’re not going to see George spit fire or blood; you’re not going to see him on strings flying across the stage,” Messina said. “George is George. He doesn’t need to blow up balloons. It’s all about the music and what he represents. If you’re a George Strait fan, it’s pure country.”

FESTIVAL SCHEDULE

The lineup at the George Strait Country Music Festival:

* 11 a.m.: “Straitland” attractions open

* 1 p.m.: Asleep at the Wheel

* 2: Lila McCann

* 3: Lee Ann Womack

* 4:05: Faith Hill

* 5:25: John Michael Montgomery

* 6:55: Tim McGraw

* 8:40: George Strait

Saturday at Edison International Field, 2000 Gene Autry Way, Anaheim. 1 p.m. $47.50. (714) 740-2000 (Ticketmaster).