Final Show of 2009 a Tearjerker for Chesney

by Josh | 09.20.2009 | Posted In: Personal, Photos, Show Reviews, Tour

Kenny Chesney finished out the 2009 Sun City Carnival Tour on Saturday night at the Lucas Oil Stadium in Indianapolis.

The show was bittersweet for Kenny, as it was the final show of the year coupled with the fact that he is taking next year off from major touring. He had to fight back tears while singing “Better As A Memory” for the show closer.

The Indianapolis Star has a review of the show:

Familiar songs were easy to follow. Thankfully, Chesney has no shortage of hits.

Most rolled out in recursive loops of lyrics focused on nostalgia, tropical fun and landlocked fun.

Yet amid “Live Those Songs,” “When the Sun Goes Down,” “Summertime,” “I Go Back,” “Beer in Mexico” and “Keg in the Closet,” Chesney carved out a serious streak with love/parenthood songs “Anything But Mine,” “Down the Road,” “Me and You” and “There Goes My Life.”

Chesney’s most personal moment arrived with show-closer “Better As a Memory,” an emotional challenge he nearly lost — perhaps because he’s announced there will be no blockbuster summer tour in 2010.

Read the full review here. The article also has a Photo Gallery with some great pics of Kenny during the show.

We’re still looking for the set list from the show. If you have it, please email it to us.

Did you attend the show? Share your experience on our discussion board!

Photo by Matt Kryger / The Star.

Kenny Rocks Sold Out Detroit Stadium

by Josh | 08.24.2009 | Posted In: Show Reviews, Tickets, Tour

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.

First-Ever Toronto Show A Rainy One

by Josh | 08.21.2009 | Posted In: Show Reviews, Tour

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.

Review of Kenny Chesney in Ottawa

by Josh | 08.19.2009 | Posted In: Show Reviews, Tour

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)

Kenny Chesney Rocks Gillette Stadium

by Josh | 08.16.2009 | Posted In: Show Reviews, Tour

Nearly 56,000 fans packed into Boston’s Gillette Stadium on Saturday night to see Kenny Chesney perform. It was his fifth consecutive sell-out at the home of the New England Patriots, and the Patriots were represented… Wes Welker and Tedy Bruschi joined Chesney on the stage at one point in the show.

The Boston Herald has a review of the show: “Kenny Chesney rocks country crowd”

Just after 9 p.m., Kenny Chesney, wearing a white cowboy hat and sitting in a high-tech swing, emerged from a gray tent in the middle of the floor at Gillette Stadium. He was lifted up and over the crowd, until he was set down on stage near the close of the wham-bam rocker “Live Those Songs Again.” There, he joined up with his cranking 11-piece band.

Forget U2, Springsteen or McCartney.

Chesney – winner of scads of Country Music Association awards – is the biggest pop act touring the United States this summer, especially here in the Boston area. Chesney’s show last night sold out in eight minutes. Not bad for a purportedly “non-country-music” region in the midst of a recession.

Read the entire review here.

Did you attend the show? Share your experience by posting a comment on this thread or on our forum.

(photo: Jim Michaud / Boston Herald)

Sun City Carnival Invades Florida

by Josh | 08.09.2009 | Posted In: Show Reviews, Tour

The 2009 Sun City Carnival Tour spent the weekend in Florida as Kenny Chesney performed Friday night in Jacksonville at Veterans Memorial Arena and then played the Ford Amphitheater in Tampa on Saturday.

Jacksonville.com has a review of Friday night’s show: “Kenny Chesney’s beach-and-beer style resonates with Jacksonville crowd”

There is no one who’s done what Kenny Chesney is doing. Every year he comes to the Jacksonville Veterans Memorial Arena and every single year he sells out the place. Nobody does that. I don’t think anybody else could do that.

And there is no party going like a Chesney concert. You could sense before you even got to the arena: A few more limos lining up, a lot more drinking in the parking lot and the guys who resell tickets were walking around empty-handed asking if anyone had extras.

Chesney’s Sun City Carnival Tour rolled into Jacksonville Friday. The arena was absolutely packed and it was very much a party. The crowd sang every bit as much as Chesney did. And though it stretched up to four hours with the opening acts, few left. You almost always see people leave before the encore, but not many left.

And the St. Petersburg Times has a review of Saturday night’s show: “Kenny Chesney gives fans a big, besotted holiday”

Randy Johnson doesn’t take kindly to steel drums and flip-flops in his country music. The 30-year-old Frito-Lay sales rep from Lakeland is an old-school outlaw fan, and he has the Johnny Cash shirt and Man in Black action figure to prove it.

That’s why he can only shake his head as the women in his life — his wife Katy Sue Johnson, 28, and his mother Katherine Teal, 50 — festoon the Ford Windstar parked in their front yard with Day-Glo shout-outs to a new-school king of country.

Husbands are one thing. Kenny Chesney, the behatted heir apparent to Jimmy Buffett, the man seducing 20,000 diehards at a sold-out Ford Amphitheatre in Tampa Saturday, is another.

View the set list from the Jacksonville show here. We still need the Tampa set list. If you have it, please e-mail it to us.

The tour is off until Thursday when Kenny Chesney heads to the northeast for a show in Hartford, CT. See all the tour dates here.

Review of Thursday’s Orange Beach, AL Show

by Josh | 08.07.2009 | Posted In: No Shoes Radio, Show Reviews, Tour

The Mobile Press-Register has a review of Thursday night’s Kenny Chesney show at the Wharf Amphitheater in Orange Beach, Alabama: “Kenny Chesney’s Orange Beach show pure fun, if not pure country”

There’s a certain temptation to measure Thursday night’s Lady Antebellum/Miranda Lambert/Kenny Chesney concert in Orange Beach against classic standards of what country music is supposed to sound like.

But a few moments looking at the feet of the roughly 10,000 people on hand was all it took to illustrate just how pointless an exercise that would be.

Simply put, flip-flops and sandals outnumbered boots by a colossal margin. 200-to-1, easily.

Read the full review here.

View the set list from the show here.

Be sure to tune into No Shoes Radio today at 11:30 ET as Kenny and his crew broadcast live from Hooters at the Landing in Jacksonville! We are told that tonight’s show at Veterans Memorial Arena will NOT be broadcast live.

Review of Chesney’s Seattle Show

by Josh | 08.02.2009 | Posted In: Show Reviews, Tour

The Seattle Times has a review of Kenny Chesney’s show on Saturday at Qwest Field in Seattle, Washington. The show also featured Lady Antebellum, Miranda Lambert, Montgomery Gentry, and Sugarland.

Chesney is a solid entertainer — a top earner on the tour circuit. He treated fans who filled three-quarters of Qwest Field to more than 20 tunes over the course of nearly two hours.

The singer-songwriter is at his best when he breaks it down a little, and goes nearly acoustic. Halfway through the set, he brought country legend Mac McAnally to the forefront for “Down the Road,” a sweet country tune about falling in love and a parent’s worry that the beloved is the right one for their kin. The sight of five guys — including Chesney — on guitars just made the tune and a few subsequent ones, including “Me and You,” authentic. Plus it’s the perfect way to hear Chesney’s smooth, easy and, OK, even sexy country voice.

Read the full review here.

Also check out the full set list from the show here. (thanks to Matt)

Review of Chesney in Salt Lake City

by Josh | 07.24.2009 | Posted In: Set Lists, Show Reviews, Tour

Last night Kenny Chesney played at the new Rio Tinto Stadium in Salt Lake City, Utah. The Salt Lake Tribute has a review of the show that focuses on the not-so-intimate venue: “Rio Tinto stadium dwarfs Kenny Chesney concert”

For years, country superstar Kenny Chesney has been one of the most popular touring acts of any genre, blurring the line between pop and country while making his shows feel like one big party at the beach.

He continued his shtick without adding many surprises to a near-capacity crowd at a sweltering Rio Tinto Stadium Thursday, but the biggest disappointment was that his bells-and-whistles show still revealed the limitations of the newest venue in Utah, Rio Tinto Stadium.

The sparkling, still-impressive Rio Tinto is not alone in its problems. It is like every other stadium in the United States, where the design of the venue is usually to accomodate sports, and music is secondary. Despite great acoustics and a huge set with state-of-the-art lighting and visual elements, the stage, positioned at the far south side of the stadium, makes each performer seem so much smaller. Even someone like Bruce Springsteen, or an Old Testament prophet, would feel overwhelmed and distant in such a stadium, and that important personal communion between artist and fan is lost.

Read the full review. The Tribune also has a photo gallery from the show that you can view here.

Also check out the set list from the show here (thanks to Mike K), which included an extended encore of cover songs.

Update – On our forum, thefewsnafu tells us that Mac McAnally was at the show and sang with Kenny on “Down The Road” and also on some of the encores.

AT&T Park Hosts the Sun City Carnival

by Josh | 07.19.2009 | Posted In: Set Lists, Show Reviews, Tour

The Sun City Carnival Tour took over the home field of the San Francisco Giants Saturday night as Kenny Chesney performed for 40,000 fans at AT&T Park. Sugarland was scheduled to play before Chesney but canceled because Jennifer Nettles apparently lost her voice in the recording studio:

Folks arriving Saturday for the big country show at San Francisco’s AT&T Park were greeted with a sign saying Sugarland — No. 2 on the bill behind Kenny Chesney — would not be performing because singer Jennifer Nettles had lost her voice in the recording studio.

The sign offered refunds but also stated that Lady Antebellum, Miranda Lambert and Chesney would play longer sets to make up for the absence. In actuality? Not so much. Chesney just pulled out his standard 90-minute set, and the whole evening was over by 10:40. Though the set was thoroughly professional and technically accomplished, and packed with familiar singalong hits — generally about partying, rose-colored nostalgia, the beach, or some combination thereof — it certainly lacked the sense of an event that last summer’s installment had, when Chesney was joined onstage by Sammy Hagar and Steve Miller. There wasn’t much magic.

View the set list from the show here.

Update – Full review from Mercury News: “Kenny Chesney is a pro, but his show at AT&T Park was a bit of a bummer”