On Saturday night Grace Potter and the Nocturnals opened for the Avett Brothers at the Ryman, and during her set Kenny Chesney surprised everyone by joining her on stage.

Potter, lead vocalist for the Vermont-based rock band, provides vocals on “You and Tequila,” a track on Chesney’s latest album, Hemingway’s Whiskey.

In introducing the song near the end of her band’s opening set for the Avett Brothers, Potter told the crowd, “This one doesn’t belong to us. It belongs to a good friend of ours. We’re also gonna borrow a good friend tonight. Ladies and gentlemen, Mr. Kenny Chesney.”

While many in the audience seemed to be in a state of disbelief, Chesney received a warm welcome when he walked onstage wearing khaki pants, blue long-sleeve T-shirt and knit cap. He watched the band’s entire set from the side of the stage. The Avett Brothers headlined sold-out shows at the Ryman on Friday and Saturday.

photo from @Wildaboutmusic

We’ll post more details and photos when they become available.

Sunday night GAC will debut “The Making of ‘Boys of Fall’”, a look behind the scenes of the production of Kenny’s first documentary.

An exclusive behind the scenes look as Kenny Chesney produces the documentary “The Boys of Fall.” The special includes scenes with some of the greatest NFL and college football coaches of all time, and Chesney’s thoughts on how important life lessons can be learned through playing the game of football.

The special will debut Sunday night at 8:00 pm ET. You can also see it at the following times:

• November 01, 2010 12:00 AM ET
• November 01, 2010 5:00 PM ET
• November 03, 2010 9:00 PM ET
• November 04, 2010 1:00 AM ET

Watch a short preview of the special here.

Great American Country (GAC) is running the Kenny Chesney Boys of Fall Sweepstakes and you could win some great prizes!

Grand Prize

• Autographed Kenny Chesney Football Jersey
• Autographed copy of the “Boys of Fall” DVD
• Autographed copy of new CD ’Hemingway’s Whiskey’

Ten second prize winners will receive an autographed copy of Hemingway’s Whiskey.

Enter now for your chance to win!

The sweepstakes is open to US residents 18 and older and runs through November 15th.

Good luck!

The first tour date of 2011 was announced this morning, and now a second one is out and it’s another festival.

Kenny Chesney will return to the Bayou Country Superfest in Baton Rouge, Louisiana that will be held May 28th and 29th at LSU Tiger Stadium. Chesney will play on Sunday the 29th.

There will be some other huge acts at the festival, including Tim McGraw, Sugarland, the Zac Brown Band, Trace Adkins, and Billy Currington. See the full lineup here.

Tickets go on sale Wednesday, November 10th at 10 am thru TicketMaster or by calling (800) 745-3000. Tickets may also be purchased at the Baton Rouge River Center Box Office open on weekdays from 10:00 a.m. until 5:00 p.m. or the 1st level Pete Maravich Assembly Center Box Office, open weekdays beginning November 10 through November 19 only, 10:00 a.m. until 5:00 p.m.

For more information on the festival, visit www.bayoucountrysuperfest.com

Update – Fan club presale tickets are available November 3rd at Noon central time at www.kennychesney.com.

The first Kenny Chesney tour date of 2011 is out as the Stagecoach Music Festival announced today that the man that headlined the show in 2009 will be back again next year. Chesney also played the festival its inaugural year in 2007.

Joining Kenny on the bill are Rascal Flatts, Carrie Underwood, Loretta Lynn, Darius Rucker and Josh Turner, among several other smaller acts. See the full lineup here.

The Stagecoach Country Music Festival will be held April 30 and May 1, 2011 at the Empire Polo Club in Indio, California.

Tickets go on sale Friday, November 5th at 10 am through the Stagecoach website.

$99 two-day weekend passes are available for a limited time and layaway options (details of which are posted at the website) will again be in place. Children 10 and under will be admitted for free.

Visit www.stagecoachfestival.com for more info.

The first round of People’s Choice nominations are out and Kenny Chesney gets nods in two categories:

Favorite Male Artist and Favorite Country Artist

He’ll have pretty stiff competition in both categories, so be sure to VOTE OFTEN for him at www.peopleschoice.com.

Here’s who Kenny is up against in the two categories:

Favorite Male Artist

• Eminem
• Enrique Iglesias
• Jason Aldean
• Jay-Z
• John Mayer
• Kanye West
• Keith Urban
• Ludacris
• Michael Bublé
• Tim McGraw
• Usher

Favorite Country Artist

• Blake Shelton
• Brad Paisley
• Carrie Underwood
• Jason Aldean
• Keith Urban
• Lady Antebellum
• Miranda Lambert
• Rascal Flatts
• Sugarland
• Taylor Swift
• Zac Brown Band

First round voting goes through November 9th. At that point the nominees will be whittled down to the top 5 in each category.

The People’s Choice Awards will air live from Los Angeles January 5 on CBS.

As we told you Monday, Kenny Chesney is releasing Somewhere With You” as his next single, following the number one hit “The Boys of Fall”.

In discussing the single, Kenny says that it “is very haunting. The track, the feel of the song- it’s really different than anything I’ve done. And what the song says is so true, because when you’re trying to get over somebody, you do a lot of things to try to get over that person. You try to go out with somebody new, but you realize it’s just a temporary high- like the song says. Getting over somebody is tough, it’s really tough. There’s always something to remind you of a time, a place, a memory, a feeling. And you always think about that person. And I think that’s why this song is so powerful.”

Kenny Chesney moved another 40,000 copies of his new album Hemingway’s Whiskey this week, the third week that it’s been on sale. That placed him at number 6 on the Billboard 200, down from number two last week.

After selling 182,000 copies the first week to make it a number one debut, Chesney added 64,000 in week two. The 40,000 last week brought the three week haul to 286,000.

Rapper Lil Wayne came in at number one this week with 125,000 sold.

See Kenny’s full album and singles chart history here.

As Kenny Chesney told The Tennessean a couple weeks back, he scratched the first draft of his new album after last year’s tour:

“I put it in my CD player and listened, and I called Buddy back before he’d even left the studio,” the country star said. “I said, ‘There’s 11 songs on this album, but we’ve really only got four.’ I wanted so bad to be finished, but it was a moment where I had to do some soul-searching as an artist. The songs sounded good, but they were passionless, and I knew in my heart that we didn’t have it.”

In an interview with Mix, Kenny fills us in on what those songs were that he kept and carried over to Hemingway’s Whiskey:

“Seven Days,” “The Boys of Fall,” “Live a Little” and… wait, there are only three actually. There was another song I was thinking of that we recorded that didn’t make the record.

So, we had to go to work again. I wrote “Reality” after that, and I was able to make this record pulling back from everything and not being on this cycle that we get so used being on of making records and touring. I had been going on the road on Thursday, Friday, Saturday night, coming home on Sunday, being in the studio Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday. When we started over and made Hemingway’s Whiskey, I was off the road. Buddy and I were able to really dig in and work with the songs, work with the musicians and talk about the music and what it meant. It gave us a chance to sonically spend time on it. I think we spent more time mixing this record than any record ever, and I wasn’t doing it after flying in from somewhere. I had not really had that luxury since we made the No Shirt, No Shoes, No Problems album.