On Saturday night Kenny Chesney entertained 49,215 fans in a town that has had a rough go lately: Detroit.

“We weren’t sure about going into Detroit again,” admits Chesney. “Things have been so tough there… you know, you want to be sensitive to the community. But then I got to thinking about it, and if anyone needs a night to forget about all of it, to just have fun and feel young and free and happy, it’s somewhere like that. So we decided to go ahead… to reach out… and before we knew it, we were looking for ways to release more tickets.

“I think in Detroit we went in and found places we could open up seating three times before it was over! And I gotta tell you: those fans came out, they cheered, they danced, they sang along. They had the time of their life – and man, we’ve always had the best audiences, period. But this year, you can really feel the way people need to connect with the music, with us, with each other – and it’s powerful! This has been a whole other kind of summer in terms of how the fans are reacting, and in some ways, it’s the most rewarding year we’ve ever had!”

Kenny also recently added one more show to the Sun City Carnival Tour: Bloomington, Illinois.

“I’ve always wanted to do a college town tour beyond the SEC, but by the time school gets back in session, we’re usually done and long gone…,” Chesney says of the surprise arena show. “You know, there’s nothing like that feeling of going back to start another year… All the unknowns, all the promise, all the fun you know you’re going to have and the things you can’t imagine you’re going to learn. For me, going back to school, as much as I hated the summer ending, was always such a great time. I think it’s great that this year, we can plug into that.”

Check out all the tour dates that remain and get tickets for them here.

Time for another Kenny Chesney Caption Contest. Put your creative hat on and take a look at the picture below, then come up with your own caption for it.

Post your caption in the comments section of this post. You may submit as many as you’d like.

After a couple of days we’ll choose a few of the best and put them in a poll for everyone to vote on their favorite. So caption away!

What to get for the man that has everything? Well recently Kenny Chesney has received a couple of cool gifts from other musicians.

At the Orange Beach, Alabama concert earlier this month, William Lee Golden of the Oak Ridge Boys attended with his family and after the show gave Kenny a painting of his adopted home, St. John in the US Virgin Islands. Nashville Gab has the story:

“We were talking about our love for St. John backstage at the ACM Awards Show in Vegas. At the time, I was working on Trunk Bay and told Kenny about the artwork. I presented it to him after his performance in Alabama, and Kenny promised to hang it in his island home. I was humbled by his response and truly treasure his friendship. He´s a great entertainer and an awesome individual.”

And just last week, according to Boston’s 102.5, Chesney received another gift, this one from Eddie Van Halen:

He’s received prized guitars and many industry accolades, but Kenny Chesney has never received a gift quite like this. Last week, Chesney got what seemed like an ordinary pair of Converse shoes, but when he opened the package, he found a pair of limited-edition Eddie Van Halen high-tops personally sent by the rock guitar hero.

(hat tip to Rosi and Denise for this story)

The Dallas Morning News is reporting that a chain of movie theaters in Texas will be showing a live Kenny Chesney concert in Dolby 3D on April 21st of next year:

Studio Movie Grill owner and founder Brian Schultz says the chain is exploring plans to show college and professional football and live concerts, with one already booked – an appearance by Kenny Chesney in Dolby 3D on April 21.

Schultz held out for a better version of 3-D, he says, because he never felt that conventional 3-D came close to “the immersive experience” he hopes to offer.

“Literally, I’ve never seen anything like it,” Schultz says of Dolby 3D. “It is absolutely unbelievable.”

Studio Movie Grill has seven locations in the Dallas and Houston metro areas and will soon expand, with locations in Atlanta and Kansas City, Mo., set to open in 2010.

Read the full article here.

April 21st is around the time that Chesney’s tour usually starts, so this live 3D concert may be the kickoff for next year’s tour.

We’ll provide more details as they become available.

Kenny Chesney will be on hand in Las Vegas at the MAGIC Fashion Show in September for the launch of his new clothing line Blue Chair Bay. He’ll play an invitation-only show at the Hard Rock Hotel that night.

Chesney’s new clothing line Blue Chair Bay, a vintage brand of ageless, simple styles, will launch at MAGIC in the Premium Men’s platform – on the Concourse (Booth PR20800). A non-traditional booth set-up, Blue Chair Bay will exhibit in a vintage Airstream trailer (a first for MAGIC!) and will also host a Corona-sponsored Happy Hour on Monday, August 31st from 4:00 – 6:00 pm.

“They tell me MAGIC is the biggest show for this sort of the thing in the world, and I love the idea that these clothes are out there for the buyers who truly know – to get to see them,” says Kenny Chesney, the biggest North American concert draw this century. “The clothes are casual, comfortable and easy to wear wherever you’re headed… and that was the whole point. Whatever you’ve got to do, something in this line will work — and for someone who lives gone most of the time, one place to find everything — like MAGIC — is a real gift.”

CONCERT DETAILS:

• WHAT: Kenny Chesney Intimate Performance
• WHEN: Tuesday, September 1, 2009. Concert 9:00 – 10:00 pm.
• WHERE: The Hard Rock Hotel
• TICKETS: This is an invitation only event

The weather has been pretty good to Kenny Chesney this summer, with the exception of the Frisco show in May where the show had to be canceled and rescheduled, but it struck again Thursday night in Toronto forcing a 35 minute delay. The Toronto Sun has a review of the show: “Chesney shines in rain-delayed show”

With a torrential downpour, lightning that was much too close for comfort and menacing looking clouds, there was an extremely good chance that the show Thursday night at Toronto’s Molson Amphitheatre would join Nickelback’s as being postponed at best, cancelled at worst.

However, Chesney and the near sold-out (and soaked) horde of cowboy hat-wearing faithful persevered, the storm subsided and about 35 minutes later than scheduled, the singer made his first Toronto visit ever on The Sun City Carnival Tour.

And while he started later than anticipated (as did openers Miranda Lambert and Lady Antebellum), the performer definitely wasted no time from start to finish, cramming what should have been a near two hour set into a near seamless 100 minutes beginning with Live Those Songs Again and Summertime.

One of the surprises of the night came when the musician decided to do a song he originally wasn’t going to perform. Strumming a guitar and putting it in tune, Chesney mentioned how the worst singer he ever heard was current Blue Jays player Kevin Millar performing Old Blue Chair. Chesney started the number and Millar sauntered onstage, brew in hand and singing off microphone which got a nice reaction.

Read the full article here and another review by the Toronto Star here.

We need the set lists for this show and the Ottawa show. Please e-mail them to us.

The Sun City Carnival Tour continues Saturday at Ford Field in Detroit.

Some controversy has erupted around the internet over a WCVB Boston story reporting that at last weekend’s show in Boston, MA Kenny Chesney confiscated a fan’s camera. One blog went as far as to call Chesney a “prick”.

Susan Mazar said the singer grabbed it while she was at this weekend’s concert in Foxborough.

Mazar said she was in the front row taking pictures, when the singer grabbed the camera from her.

Mazar said she and other fans were stunned when Chesney took the camera.

“(Chesney) was like a person in front of me and he reached down, grabs the camera, shuts it, goes down the walkway and throws it on the stage,” Mazar said.

Mazar said she did get the camera back, but the memory card, loaded with pictures of her family vacation, was missing.

Mazar told NewsCenter 5 that she was taking still pictures only of the show, not video.

Earlier in the tour Kenny was upset with people videotaping him during shows and it appeared that cameras might be banned altogether but this was not the case. Only videotaping is not allowed.

ChesneyWorld received this tweet after the Gillette show:

“I was there when the girl said kenny took her camera & to KC’s defense, she was videotaping the whole show”

Also, Erin from CountryMusicIsLove.com was interviewed by Electric Barnyard and explained that she was about 10 feet from the whole thing and that it was a video camera, not a still camera. Listen to the interview here.

What are your thoughts on this story? Leave a comment to this post or discuss on our forum.

The No Shoes Radio store is now open at richardandsouthern.com.

The store currently features:

• Men’s and Women’s Shirts
• Hats
• Mugs
• License Plates
• Bottle Opener Keyring
• Frisbee
• Can Coolies
• Lanyards
• Bumper Stickers
• Guitar Pick Set

Check out the the No Shoes Radio Store now!

(hat tip to stomo521 for passing this along)

Wednesday night Kenny Chesney brought the Sun City Carnival Tour to the Scotiabank Place in Ottawa, Ontario. It’s Kenny’s second swing through Canada. In July, he played Edmonton, Calgary, and Merritt.

The Ottawa Citizen has a review of the show: “Chesney rocks Scotiabank like a summer tailgate party”

Too bad Scotiabank Place doesn’t have a retractable roof. Glancing up at the stars would have been all 13,500 country-music fans needed Wednesday night for Kenny Chesney’s show to be a total summer blowout.

Chesney, 41, lived up to his party-boy reputation by opening his show drifting over the crowd in a suspended chair. The good Lord Himself, or even Garth Brooks, might have been greeted less tumultuously than when Chesney finally touched down on stage.

He completed the party-time picture with a boat load of mostly upbeat, summery tunes including Beer in Mexico, When the Sun Goes Down, and No Shoes, No Shirt, No Problems. Behind him, images of bikini-clad girls and other happy folks splashed across the video screens.

Read the full review here.

Chesney stays in Canada on Thursday for a show at the Molson Amphitheater in Toronto before returning to the states Saturday for a stadium concert at Ford Field in Detroit. Check out the full tour schedule here.

(photo: Christopher Pike, The Ottawa Citizen)