Fresh off a massively successful show at New Meadowlands Stadium in New Jersey that he said was “one of the best nights of our lives,” Kenny Chesney slipped up to Burlington, Vermont and joined Grace Potter at her Waterfront Park show.

He and Potter sang “You and Tequila,” with Chesney briefly bestowing Potter with his trademark cowboy hat, before Chesney declared “I think I’m going to spend the night.”

He stuck around for cover versions of the Bad Company rocker “Feel Like Makin’ Love” and the Tom Petty tune “Free Fallin’,” alternating verses with Potter. Chesney left the stage with high praise for Potter and the Nocturnals: “This is the best band in America, the world, right here,” he said as the show ended.

Watch a video of Kenny and Grace singing “Free Falling” here.

Chesney previously joined Grace last November when she played the Ryman in Nashville, and just last month she joined Kenny at Red Rocks in Colorado.

(photo by Ian Thomas Jansen-Lonnquist/Free Press)

Kenny Chesney is in New York City this weekend for a show at the Meadowlands and he made time to sit down with the New York Times for an interview on “Kenny Chesney, Inc.”

Here are some excerpts. Be sure to read the full interview here.

Q. So, you’re the C.E.O., in effect, of Kenny Chesney Inc. How big is the business?

A. I have 120 employees on the road every day, and about 30 other employees off the road. I remember being on the bus a couple years ago, and I looked out the window of my bus and said to myself: Who’s paying for this? And it hit me: You are! I was in charge of making sure that we get from Point A to Point B, that we all do it seamlessly and that we all do it effectively, and we all do it on time.

Q. So how do you make that real — everybody should have respect for everyone else — rather than just a slogan?

A. I want all the people out there who work with me to feel as appreciated as possible, especially the people who are the first to get up in the morning and the last to go to bed — my crew guys. Sometimes we do a “merch” lottery. We put everybody’s name in a huge sombrero and whoever’s name I pull out gets all of the money from merchandise sales for that night.

Q. How much money could that be from the merchandise?

A. Probably the biggest check was three hundred grand. But do you know what those guys did? This is why I think this kind of thing works: They waited until the end of the year and I wrote one big check to the crew and they divided it up 13 ways. Doing things like that just motivates people.

Q. What else do you do?

A. At the end of each year, I take the band, crew, the merchandise people, catering people, my management team, their wives, girlfriends, whatever, down to the Virgin Islands for a week to thank them. I pay for everything, and we’ve done it every year since 2002.

Kenny Chesney is in New York / New Jersey this weekend for a show at the New Meadowlands Stadium and on Friday he made time to visit the Jets training camp:

Avid football fan Kenny Chesney stopped by the New York Jets’ training camp today, to hang with Coach Rex Ryan and several of his players. Kenny is in New Jersey to play an already history-making show at the Meadowlands Stadium, where the Jets play. Uncle Kracker, Billy Currington and Zac Brown Band are also on tomorrow night’s (August 13) bill, which is the biggest single-ticket country show in the New York City/New Jersey area since 1983, when Willie Nelson, Waylon Jennings, Merle Haggard and Linda Ronstadt drew more than 51,000 concertgoers to their joint show in the area.

Billboard has ranked the top 25 tours in music and Kenny Chesney landed on the list:

There are still four more months until the calendar turns to 2012, but several country tours have already emerged as the year’s most profitable. Billboard has ranked the Top 25 grossing tours of 2011 and two country tours landed in the Top 15, sharing space alongside the mainstream likes of U2, Bon Jovi, Lady Gaga and Usher! Country fans are notorious for their loyalty and for supporting their favorite acts by attending their live shows and these figures certainly attest to that fact.

The list tallies tour grosses from Nov. 1, 2010, and May 31, 2011, with Kenny Chesney‘s Goin’ Coastal tour landing at No. 9 with more than $25 million in receipts over the course of 25 shows. That averages out to a million bucks per show. Clearly, fans are showing up in droves to see Chesney do his thang, as he rocks his way across the stage in stage uniform of a cowboy hat and shirts with the sleeves cut off.