Kenny Chesney On Tour

Doing a Greatest Hits – when you’ve had as many chart-toppersas Kenny Chesney – is never any easy thing.   But when you’re as musical and creative as the full-tilt songwriter/showman from Luttrell, Tennessee slowing down the creative process long enough to catch up can be harder.

So, with his well-documented love of college football yielding ESPN’s college football theme “This Is Our Moment” earlier this fall and the high-impact stadium concert experience “Kenny Chesney: Summer in 3-D” screaming out for a song to tie the 5-stadium, 6 night  and a whole lotta, in-between footage together yielding the driving ”Ain’t Back Yet,” Chesney needed a way to get the music into his fans hands.

Always one to color outside the lines, the man who played to over a
million fans for the 8th consecutive summer, decided that given the
immediacy of this music, it made more sense to do the unusual – and put
the two songs on his currently available Greatest Hits II. Working with
the team at his label to find a creative way to make this happen, the
result offers a few options to get one’s hands on “Ain’t Back Yet” and
“This Is Our Moment.”

“Those two songs are so much a moment,” says the man who played the New
Orleans’ Saints Super Bowl Victory Bash in Miami Sunday night. “You want
them when the moment is still fresh… and I won’t have a record out til
next fall. So with all the options that are available in today’s world,
I kinda felt like there has to be a way to get this music to people, to
be creative with it. I went back to my record company and asked them to
help me figure this out.”

Available digitally on March 2, the songs are also being stripped onto
physical copies of Chesney’s Greatest Hits II and should be in the marketplace
around the same date. As with anything that is outside the mold, which
is much of the way Chesney dreams, details are being sorted out as they
go. But for the man who grew up on the songs of Tom Petty, Van Halen,
Jackson Browne and Alabama, the most exciting part of this is the
ability to accelerate the process.

“It’s the possibilities that have always thrilled me,” Chesney says.
“Not what’s been done, but what could be… It’s what made me leave
Luttrell all those years ago… say ‘Why not stadiums…’ and then last
summer, ‘Why not 3-D?’ If you keep asking and dreaming, you can do
amazing things. And, you know, that’s what these two songs are about,
too: the work, the will, the desire – and what’s possible.”

“Ain’t Back Yet” isn’t going for radio airplay until early March, but it’s
already country’s radio’s most downloaded song.   The theme from “Kenny
Chesney: Summer in 3-D” captures the drive it takes to get to being one
of the guy who’s sold over a million tickets each of the past 8 summers.

2009's Summer In 3D

Los Angeles:   He knew when he decided to start shooting in 3-D, his stadium shows were something special. Even more than the high energy, good time celebrations of life the way people really live and love it, Kenny Chesney sensed that what he was sharing with his fans… what he had built with his band, crew and management team… was more than one great big rock show.

And then he got to Sony Studios in Los Angeles to work on placing the various audio tracks in the surround sound and look at the color-adjustments for the 3-d edit, which is done on a full-sized cinema screen. That was when it, “Kenny Chesney: Summer in 3-D,” really hit the 4-consecutive Academy of Country Music and 4-time Country Music Association Entertainer of the Year.

“All of a sudden, I’m hearing the music all around me… and then when I saw the images up on that giant screen… all I could think of were all the lives that had come together to get me to that point,” the obviously moved singer/songwriter from Luttrell, TN said standing outside the soundstage. “I’ve been looking at this footage for months now… in both 2-D and 3-D, so I know it pretty well. But when you see it like that, especially when you see the fans’ faces looking out from the screen…

“Well, you see the people singing along, reaching up, clapping along – and it just hits you: these aren’t people who’re here because they like the songs. They’re here because they believe in what we’ve built, too… because they were a big part of this: telling their friends, coming back, playing me in their trucks, on the way to things that were such a part of their lives.

“To see that kind of passion… To be able to really see those faces where I can just stand there and take it all in… Now that is something I don’t see very much, and I go to a lot of shows, and watch a lot of crowds, but the folks who come out for us, well, it’s something I can’t explain, but I can’t wait for the fans to get to see themselves, to get to see what me and the guys get to see every night! It’s cool…”

With a national opening April 21, Chesney is under the gun to get all the editing and sweetening done in time for the prints to be manufactured. Though the process can be tedious, Chesney says that his time in California has really kicked him into overdrive.

“Anyone who knows me knows I’m not afraid of the work – and I very much care about the quality of what I do,” he explains. “Some things are harder than others… Some things take more time… But honestly, I can’t think of very many things I’ve been as fired up about finishing and getting out to the fans. The places these cameras go, the way the songs and the people are captured… This truly is closer than you can get with a ticket, but it’s also the chance to see things from a perspective that’s not just mine, but where none of us could ever go…”

A Toast to the 2000's For Kenny

Nashville: While he’s the only country act in Pollstar’s Top Tours of 2009’s Top 10 – finishing at #6 with a gross of $71.1 million, Keith Urban being next at #16 – but more impressively, after only 8 of the new century’s first 10 years spent as a headliner, the high energy performer still came in as the #2 most attended and #3 highest earning tour of the 21st century’s first decade. Granted 5 of those years saw Kenny Chesney headlining multiple NFL stadiums, but it’s still an achievement he finds staggering.

“I remember how good it felt when I was selling out small halls and bars, and you can tell everyone “I sold the show out…,” Chesney says with a laugh. “You know that idea that there are no more tickets left, no matter how small the venue, it’s exciting – and you can feel it in the crowd. So, when you start playing bigger and bigger places, you want to keep that… the energy you have, and the excitement when you hear you’ve gone clean in a venue.”

“But even as you’re hearing that stuff, there’s still some sense of, well, it’s not real. You sell out Foxboro’s Gillette Stadium 5 years in a row – it’s not ho-hum…. and it’s still more things people say than real until you walk out onstage, hear the crowd and go, ‘WOW!’ Because in a weird way, these numbers – especially to a guy from Luttrell, TN who thought they had it made playing the Turf in Nashville one New Year’s Eve – are surreal.”

Ironically, the only act who outdrew Chesney for the decade was good friend and duet partner Dave Matthews, well established as a headliner in the last 90s. For sheer gross, Celine Dion’s historic Vegas residency put her at #2 – with DMB earning $529 million, Dion bringing in $522 million and Chesney earning an impressive $455 million with aggressively low ticket prices. Rounding out the decade’s Top 10 are stalwarts Bruce Springsteen, the Rolling Stones, U2, Madonna, the Eagles, Elton John and Jimmy Buffett.

“You look at those names, and you look around,” the 4-consecutive Academy of Country Music and 4-time Country Music Association Entertainer of the Year concedes. “Every name on that list is a serious performer whose songs have made a mark on how people live their lives, how they mark their passages – and to be on a list with those sorts of icons really makes me pause and think about all of it…

“Because to be honest, for me and the guys, it’s really more about the next show, the next chance to get up onstage and rock. That energy… the way the fans throw it back at us, sing these songs like they are their lives… well, that is, hands down, the greatest feeling in the world!’

The names on the 2009 list are pretty impressive, too. With U2’s stadium-only tour coming in at #1, it’s Bruce Springsteen, Elton John & Billy Joel, Britney Spears and AC/DC making the top 5 – and the Jonas Bros, Dave Matthews, Fleetwood Mac and Metallica closing out the Top 10 tours of the year. With a 3-D moving coming in April, who knows what 2010 holds for country’s biggest draw?

Chesney's Second Greatest Hits CD Is a best seller

When Kenny Chesney wrapped his Sun City Carnival Tour in September, he had played 15 major NFL stadiums – including a 5 minute sell-out in Boston, a 4th straight Philly sell-out, a seats-added sell-out in Detroit and a rained-out/made up play in Dallas – and once again sold in excess of 1.1 million tickets. It was a whirlwind year for a high energy artist, marking eight straight years of selling over a million tickets and soundtracking life for people between the coasts.

And people respond year after year, because they know Kenny Chesney knows: how they feel, who they are and the way their lives really look. With each of his solo projects since 2002’s No Shoes, No Shirt, No Problems yielding several #1s and all being multi- or close to multiplatinum – and his introspective songwriter projects Be As You Are: Songs From An Old Blue Chair and Lucky Old Sun hovering at the million copy mark – it’s amazing to see Chesney’s Greatest Hits, Vol. II hitting gold for sales of over 500,000. The Hits package also includes his recent # 1 single, “Out Last Night,” and the Dave Matthews duet, “I’m Alive.”

“I guess we do greatest hits projects so people can have all the hits in one place,” Chesney says with a laugh. “Because between the radio and the albums sold, I know the fans know these songs! It’s nice to have it all in one place… and to have the chance to take the Dave Matthews song (“I’m Alive” from Lucky Old Sun) and give it a proper commercial home, because that’s just magic, and it gave people the chance to hear it on the radio.

“That first greatest hits, it kept selling and selling and is still selling, so the thing, about these kinda records that I’ve learned is you don’t measure their success in the first year, you measure how long people keep buying it! I hope they’re gonna keep buying this one for a long, long time ’cause I want this music to remind them of all the great things they’ve lived with us.”

To that end, Rolling Stone finds Chesney on their – as Bob Dylan would say – “Back Pages” on the charts they’ve published to recognize the biggest successes of the past decade. Though their rankings are measured in dollars – always putting Chesney with his fan-friendly prices at a significant disadvantage – the singer/songwriter from Luttrell, Tennessee finds himself as the #3 biggest touring act of the decade behind Dave Matthews and Celine Dion — and ahead of the Rolling Stones, Bruce Springsteen, U2, Madonna and more.

“These songs work best when we sing them with people,” Chesney says of the honor. “So I like to get out there and sing ‘em for and with my friends… and that’s meant a lot of miles, a lot of days gone and a whole lotta love.

“It’s funny, though, how all these magazines measure in money… rather than the people who come and buy the tickets, cause to me, that’s the only thing that matters! Those fans who show up every night, who stand there in the sun, occasionally the rain and always with the biggest smiles on their faces… To me, it’s not about where I rank, but knowing the chunks of their lives those fans have shared with me. Now that’s what this whole crazy rides about!”

Kenny Chesney has announced he’ll be back on the road taking advantage of some of the big music festivals

BamaJam

to get in front of fans without the hassles of having to produce an entire tour.

Kenny will be the headliner of the 2010 Bamajam on June 3rd – 5th in Enterprise AL.

Other performers include Jake Owen and Blackberry Smoke.  More info and ticket info comingsoon to bamajammusicfestival.com.

Kenny Chesney

Las Vegas: As his Sun City Carnival continues doing definitive business in a tough economic climate – including playing for in excess of 60,000 at Boston’s Gillette Stadium this weekend – and the high energy singer/songwriter just scored his 19th #1 with “Out Last Night” from his Greatest Hits II, the music and mindset of Kenny Chesney continues inspiring people in ways that extend beyond the obvious. Given Chesney’s low-key, low-impact life, it was only a matter of time before someone approached the laidback musician about clothes that reflected his deeply casual sense of style.

“We’ve had people approach us in the past,” admits the man who rocks hard and kicks back hard, “but it never seemed like something I’d wear… and when these folks called, I wasn’t sure. But the people from [what became] Blue Chair Bay got the things that are important to me: quality materials that don’t try, timeless vintage stuff that isn’t right now, but forever… and colors that look like they’ve been baked by the sun and sea water… and clothes you can live in. And they let me be involved with the design, so these clothes aren’t someone who doesn’t know me …”

Blue Chair Bay is not a signature line, but inspired by the man and his music, which reflects ocean living, time spent with friends and relaxing wherever you are. With woven shirts, khakis, shorts, t’s and jeans, the men’s and women’s lines have soft launched in very select retailers including Fast Buck Freddy’s in Key West, Ocean Eddies in Gulf Coast, Al and Levys in Nashville – and will have their official debut at the MAGIC Marketplace in Las Vegas, hands down the largest clothing event in America, Sept. 1 with a very intimate performance at the Hard Rock Hotel in Las Vegas.

“The idea – to me – is what would you need if you were going to take off for a week in the islands or at the beach… or even just on the road,” explains the man who’s made vintage t’s, baggy khakis and ball caps a uniform for young people coming into your own across the nation. “These are the things you wear when you’re just being yourself, unplugging with nothing to prove. To me, when you’ve got nowhere to go, nowhere to be – and you want to be comfortable, but still look good.”

Well over two years in the works with the American design team, Blue Chair Bay captures the attitude and ease of the 4-consecutive Academy of Country Music and 4-time and reigning Country Music Association Entertainer of the Year onstage – and off. With an emphasis on all-natural fabrics and places that evoke real people and places in Chesney’s world, the comprehensive men’s and women’s lines will be displayed at the MAGIC Marketplace inside Las Vegas Convention Center in its own tour bus, a first for the international trade show that is easily the biggest in the world.

“Just like I don’t know fashion,” explains the largest North American ticket-seller this century, “I don’t expect these people to really know who I am, what I do or what I’d like to think my music represents… So, that’s why I’m going to play a very intimate show for a lot of them: bring them in organically to the songs, the stories and give them a sense of who I – and the people who live these songs right along with us – am. To me, when I look out at the crowd every night onstage, I know this is going to make shopping easier… not because it’s me, but because these are clothes I know I have to hunt to find, and now, it’s everything that feels good, wears easy and looks right in one place.”

 “We wouldn’t do this for just anyone,” says the man who runs his Sun City tour like a finely calibrated machine – and knows that ultimately, the only thing that matters is rocking those fans. “When you’re in the momentum of bringing the show together, you’re gathering that energy, you’re getting that focus… people see onstage and it’s a whole lot of fun, but don’t kid yourselves: we put a lot of thought and a lot of intensity to bringing something that’s as strong as what the fans give us.

Chesney's Second Greatest Hits CD Is a best seller

Pittsburgh:

Last year at Pittsburgh’s Heinz Stadium, there were so many boats docked on the river near the stadium, Kenny Chesney found himself commandeering a runner and getting out amongst the fans on the water – and with that sort of high spirits seeming to always be a by-product of Kenny Chesney in the Iron City, it seemed the perfect place to embed Entertainment Weekly to capture a day in the life of the biggest North American ticket-seller in any genre this century. Especially with his # 1 debuting Greatest Hits II, mirroring many of the songs in his set, available in stores and on-line.

“Entertainment Weekly is the kind of publication that wants to see how it comes together, what makes it work. They weren’t just coming at this as a ‘What time is meet & greet…’ sort of thing. And I think as much as I try to make it more for my fans, and also to give them a reason to forget about anything that might be bother them, they do want to know what it is we’re doing all day while they’re out in the parking lot. So, this was the perfect way to make that happen.”

Chesney opened his Corona Extra presents Sun City Carnival Tour to EW Senior Writer Whitney Pastorek, fresh from a piece about Pearl Jam and heading to the Bonnaroo Festival, and her photographer for complete access during their Heinz Stadium day. On the bus, in the off-guarded moments, gearing up, making the move and – obviously – taking the stage. Not only did Pastorek get to be part of Chesney’s entrance, but her photographer was able to shoot from the swing Chesney often enters on.

“This was a chance for me to give the fans a sense of how this happens,” Chesney explains. “To put it in a place and with a writer who gets the energy and the intensity of the biggest shows out there. If the people come and they throw it at us as hard as they do… If we’re going to show what it takes to be ready, to be enough to give them as good as we get, I wanted someone who would understand the difference… Not just think ‘oh, this is big, that’s a lot of trucks,’ but who would get how big the heart of every one of the people out here with me is, who would feel that intensity we try to bring to what we do – and also the fun. We play as hard as we work. We take the show and the music serious and not much else. – and it was obvious Whitney understood both sides of that.”

With his Sun City Carnival rolling into Chicago’s Soldier Field stadium on Saturday, a CMA Fan Festival appearance on Sunday and “Out Last Night” pushing towards #1, the man the LA Times’ called “the People’s Entertainer” is rocking hard. Friday, the fans, the frenzied and the just plain curious can pick up the new Entertainment Weekly and see just how the man who’s sold over a million tickets each of the past 7 years does it.

On May 15, PEOPLE Country will publish its latest newsstand–only issue dedicated to the Country music scene and Country lifestyle.  This edition, the second of five special Country issues to be published by PEOPLE in 2009, names “Country’s Hottest Guys” and explains why these 12 sexy men know how to turn up the heat and make female fans swoon.  Country’s Hottest Guys, according to PEOPLE Country are, in alphabetical order:

Trace Adkins – The Roughneck                    Jake Owen – The Catch

Dierks Bentley – The Free Spirit                   Brad Paisley – The Charmer                         

Luke Bryan – The Smooth Talker                  Blake Shelton – The Joker

Kenny Chesney – The Heartbreaker            Josh Turner – The Family Man

Jack Ingram – The Marathon Man                 Keith Urban – The Heartthrob

Tim McGraw – The Great Romantic              Chuck Wicks – The Leading Man

Trace Adkins shares with PEOPLE Country his take on why the ladies love country boys:  “It gets down to the caveman basics – women know a guy raised in the country can provide for her, feed her and shelter her no matter what the circumstances.  That boy from the country is going to take care of you.”

Paisley Makes The List... and The Issue

 Brad Paisley credits his sense of humor with helping him snag his wife of six years, actress Kimberly Williams-Paisley.  “It’s probably 98 percent of why she’s with me,” he says.  “Humor is the great equalizer, just like music.  If you can make a woman laugh, you’ll get to talk to her longer.  For me it was a vital thing, especially in my awkward high school years when I was 98 lbs.  When I learned how to be funny, it was life-changing.” 

PEOPLE Country asked Keith Urban’s female colleagues to sum up his sex appeal.  Sarah Buxton says that “Keith walks that fine line between bad boy, risk taker and family man.”  Heidi Newfield adds, “He’s got an edgy, organic, rock-and-roll vibe to him.  He walks onstage and my eye is drawn to him.  He’s just hot!”  Single at 27, Jake Owen is still looking for the one.  “When I find the right girl…the woman that I marry, I’m going to make her the happiest person ever.  She deserves to be,” says Owen.                                                                                                                                                                    

Tune-in to PEOPLE Country on CMT for a 30-minute CMT special that will bring the pages of PEOPLE Country to life, with exclusive, behind-the-scenes footage of photo shoots and interviews (Brad Paisley, Kellie Pickler, Paula Deen and Chuck Wicks).  The special premieres Friday, May 15 at 1:30 p.m. ET/PT, and will encore on Saturday, May 16 at 1:30 p.m. ET/PT and Sunday, May 17 at 11:00 a.m. ET/PT.