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FRIENDS
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 Last year’s Kenny Chesney concert at Lucas Oil Stadium in Indianapolis attracted 52,000 fans but many of them had trouble making out the words to the songs because of poor acoustics. After receiving numerous complaints both Chesney and the venue are working to improve the acoustics for this year’s September 19th show.
Ed Wannebo, production manager for Chesney’s shows since 2003, took a break from this summer’s tour to visit Lucas Oil Stadium, which he assessed as one of the most challenging listening rooms in America.
“The goal is to minimize the exposed reflective surface,” Wannebo said. “Make the room as small as possible and soften it as much as possible.”
The Indiana Stadium and Convention Building Authority will spend $200,000 on wall treatments to minimize echoes during the event. Drapes will cover large windows on the northeast and southwest ends of the building to achieve the same objective.
Stadium director Mike Fox said the Capital Improvement Board, under scrutiny for a projected $47 million deficit, won’t pay for any part of the bill.
“The (building authority) always had money in the budget to address acoustical issues, once we identified them,” said John Klipsch, executive director of the building authority. “We knew we wouldn’t identify them until after the building opened and a concert played here.”
Get tickets for Chesney’s Indianapolis show along with other shows on the tour here.
 Forbes has released its annual list of the top grossing musicians and Kenny Chesney made the list at number five with $65 million in earnings.
Here’s a look at the top 10:
- Madonna – $110 million
- Celine Dion – $100 million
- Beyonce – $87 million
- Bruce Springsteen – $70 million
- Kenny Chesney – $65 million
- Rascal Flatts – $60 million
- Coldplay – $60 million
- AC/DC – $60 million
- The Eagles – $55 million
- Toby Keith – $52 million
In the past 12 months, the top 10 musicians earned a combined $719 million, up from $500 million during the 12-month period ending June 2008, Forbes said.
The average ticket price climbed $5.26, to $67.33, the biggest single-year increase in 15 years. Gross revenue for the top 100 touring acts was up 6.5 percent.
Arena acts now earn about $20 per ticket, compared with only about $1 per CD sold, the magazine said.
Touring acts make additional millions through merchandise sales.
 The Sun City Carnival Tour continued on Saturday night as Kenny Chesney rocked the FargoDome in Fargo, North Dakota. The Forum of Fargo has a review of the show: “Party trained: Kenny Chesney plays Fargodome”
Kenny Chesney is a wedge.
And not just because the country star, who played to more than 14,000 people in the Fargodome on Saturday night, has songs with enough Caribbean influence to offend hardline country traditionalists.
More so, it’s because the stud who’s never met a sleeveless shirt he hasn’t liked is the dividing line between old-school country purists who won’t listen to anything not endorsed by Nashville and the new-school country fans raised in a world where country and rock music sound like siblings who get along.
Read the full review here.
View the set list here.
B-93.7 FM in Grand Rapids, Michigan tweeted earlier today that the Zac Brown Band were stuck in Colorado last night after their flight was canceled and Kenny Chesney dispatched his private jet to get the boys up to Michigan for their performance today at the B93 Birthday Bash 17.
Update – From MLive.com:
We also caught up backstage with the Zac Brown Band, who told Press correspondent Lorilee Craker how their flight out of Denver was canceled Friday and how they called up superstar Kenny Chesney, who let the guys use his jet.
“We were gonna charter a jet, but it’s stupid expensive to do that,” said Zac Brown, “so we called up Kenny … and he hooked it up to bring all the guys here.”
Follow us on Twitter at twitter.com/ChesneyWorld.
 Kenny Chesney headlined the Apple River Country Splash Festival on Friday night in Somerset, Wisconsin. TwinCities.com has a review of the show: “Kenny Chesney gets the party started”
While the music industry suffers through the economic doldrums afflicting every line of business, why is it that country star Kenny Chesney is packing football stadiums?
Well, he answered that question pretty eloquently while headlining Friday’s installment of the three-day Apple River Country Splash on the outskirts of Somerset, Wis. Chesney has earned his audience with flamboyant, high-energy shows that are long on sweat equity and party anthems. He served as both host and the life of the party as the light dimmed on one of the longest days of the year, encouraging an enthusiastic crowd of more than 11,000 to embrace the arrival of summer.
Chesney’s 90-minute set capped a 9 1/2-hour country festival, but Friday’s show came as something of a package deal, as Chesney has been touring with the two acts that preceded him to the stage, Miranda Lambert and Lady Antebellum. The latter’s late-afternoon set was rich with harmonies and youthful vigor.
Read the full review here.
If you have the set list for the show please e-mail it to us.
 Kenny Chesney’s concert at the Hard Rock Cafe in New York City on September 15th will be part of the Ambassadors of Rock concert series according to Country Standard Time.
“As part of this global program we are hosting iconic artists around the world and we are thrilled to bring one of the world’s biggest and most successful stadium acts to the crossroads of the world – our New York cafe,” said Sean Dee, Vice President and Chief Marketing Officer, Hard Rock International. “Kenny Chesney’s history of stellar, high-energy performances is the perfect complement to an already impressive international tour lineup.”
“Music that connects is music that rocks,” Chesney said. “To me, the Hard Rock Ambassadors of Rock Tour is about the experience of music, of coming together, of how blinding it can be when it’s good… whether it’s Bruce Springsteen or Nine Inch Nails, Neil Young, The Killers or us. I’m honored to take part in this because that place where music and people come together to really let go, well, that’s what we’re all about.”
Hard Rock will donate proceeds from Chesney’s New York appearance to benefit PLAN!T NOW – an organization that empowers coastal residents to mitigate disasters in severe storm and hurricane-prone regions by being prepared. The group offers outreach, resources and connections for residents in coastal regions in the U.S., Mexico and the Caribbean, to create understanding about the power of preparedness. Chesney is on the group’s board of directors.
Read the full article here.
You can register to win a trip to an Ambassadors of Rock show here!
 After making a surprise festival visit last week in Nashville, Kenny Chesney will perform at a festival today that has been planned for months. He’ll take the stage at the Apple River Country Splash Festival in Somerset, Wisconsin around 9:30 pm.
Also performing at the festival are Boss Grant & The Johnny Cash Revue Band, Jason Michael Carroll, Lady Antebellum, and Miranda Lambert.
Then tomorrow Kenny Chesney will take the Sun City Carnival Tour to Fargo, North Dakota for a show at the FargoDome.
If you attend one of these shows please help us out with the set list. Send it via e-mail.
Tickets are still available for these shows and others on the tour. Get them here.
Back on June 6th Kenny Chesney performed at Heinz Field in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. Earlier that day before the show Kenny went down to the river where some fans were tailgating on boats and played a couple of songs.
You can view several high quality photos of Kenny’s impromptu set here.
(hat tip to Scot for passing these along)
 We reported yesterday that Kenny Chesney has reached the top of the charts this week with his latest single “Out Last Night”. It’s his 19th number one hit. Here’s Kenny’s take on another chart topper:
“I’ve been really lucky,” Chesney says, “I came to town, fell in with the Acuff Rose people – and got a real baptism in what a great song is, what it needs to be and the way to let it breathe. You come up with folks like Whitey Shaffer, and Dean Dillon, Bill Anderson, those guys… and you take the songs pretty serious. Just like I take the fans so serious… the songs are what I bring them, and I want them to be able to live in them, too.”
“Growing up, going out was everything to us,” Chesney says. “And as I’ve gotten older, not much has changed. When I’ve got friends down in the islands with us… we’re heading out, seeing what kind of people we can meet, fun we can have, jokes we can tell… some things never change.
“And, as a music fan, it’s like that, too… We’re all talking about what shows we wanna go see… where we wanna go see’em, what they might play. I think when people forget about that stuff in their lives, they start dying. They just do… and that’s one thing I’m not only not gonna do, I’m not gonna let the people who love this music do it, either. So if I’m gonna have a song on the radio right now, I can’t think of a better one for it to be.”
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