You could drop all kinds of stats trying to size up Kenny Chesney’s Trip Around the Sun Tour, which launched its 2018 run at Tampa’s Raymond James Stadium Saturday night.
There’s the end zone-swallowing stage, 180 tons thick and half a skyscraper high. There were the 55,292 fans who essentially sold the place out, and the crew in the hundreds it took to make the whole train go.
But Chesney himself might just direct your eyes to the north end of the stadium, where he had the Buccaneers’ pirate ship draped in a sail-sized skull-and-bones flag tatted with the words NO SHOES NATION.
Yep: For his first Tampa show in five years, the country superstar commandeered one of the city’s iconic structures and branded it in his own image, like everything else in his increasingly Buffett-like empire.
“Five years is too long to stay away from Tampa Bay, and for that, I apologize,” Chesney told the masses. “But, if all you people let me tonight — let me and my band and my road family — we’re gonna take you by the hand, and we’re gonna make love to you all night! And I promise we will make up for all five years we did not come here!”
It was personal for Chesney, kicking this tour off in Florida. Ever since Hurricane Irma ripped through his beloved Keys and Virgin Islands last fall, he’s been an active advocate for relief and recovery. He spent most of the week here rehearsing, and was rewarded with his largest audience ever at RayJay.
On Friday night Kenny Chesney played the first of two concerts at Gillette Stadium in Foxborough, Massachusetts. The Providence Journal has a review of the show:
In the only stadium stop on his brief, unnamed summer tour, Kenny Chesney and guests treated the Foxboro faithful on Friday to a six-hour explosion of summer tunes and Chesney’s unique version of country storytelling.
With one foot in country music and another in the world occupied by boys of summer like Jimmy Buffett, Chesney kicked off his sold-out, two-show stay at Gillette Stadium with a two-hour set that spanned his 23-year recording career.
Calling Boston the birthplace of No Shoes Nation, the name he’s given his fan club, the ever-hyper Chesney ran onstage wearing a Patriots tank top and his guitar for a fast-paced version of “Beer in Mexico” that had his and three other guitars sizzling rock-and-roll style. The rock flavoring continued through a lackluster version of “Reality” and a peppy “Living in Fast Forward.”
While there were a few lulls for songs like “It’s Gone” and “Somewhere with You,” Chesney proved the ultimate showman and storyteller with an energetic and vocally solid delivery of “Summertime,” “No Shoes, No Shirt, No Problem” “How Forever Feels” and “She’s From Boston,” one of the 30 songs on the live album he’s releasing at the end of October. Eleven of those songs, including that one, will be from one of his 16 Gillette shows.
One of country music’s most detailed and animated storytellers, Chesney covered a wide range of topics in the 21-song set, touching on youth in “Young” and “American Kids,” love with “Anything but Mine,” and small-town memories in “All the Pretty Girls” and “I Go Back.”
Introduced as a “brother” by Chesney — who also recalled that Rock “pissed off my Uncle Buck” when the two met some years before — Rock strode on stage sporting a lightweight fedora and a Detroit Lions vest. The two broke into a snippet of The Allman Brothers Band’s “Midnight Rider,” which segued into Rock’s hit “Cowboy,” much to the delight of the nearly 46,000 partisan fans in attendance.
The pair finished with a quick romp through David Allan Coe’s “You Never Even Called Me By My Name” before Rock exited, nearly forgetting the Lions vest he had taken off until Chesney returned it to him.
A Hamburg, NY woman being treated for cancer was brought up onstage by Kenny Chesney at a recent concert:
In April, 22-year-old Alicia Porack was diagnosed with Hodgkin’s Lymphoma. She uses YouTube to post videos to share her journey in the hopes for it to be an outlet for her and to help others who might be suffering from the same form of cancer..
Two days after she went for chemotherapy treatment and shaved her head, Porack was supposed to attend a Kenny Chesney concert, but was apprehensive about attending.
“My friend Taylor was like we need to make you a sign. We want to get you on stage. Kenny Chesney brings people on stage all the time and I was like, ‘No, no, no I don’t want to do that. It’s fine. I just want to go watch the concert,’” she tells WGRZ.
Porack’s friends made a sign anyway — it read ‘Beatin’ Cancer’ — and they hid it under a shirt to sneak it in.
“And Kenny Chesney saw it. And he was like, oh I see it, I see it and then after his encore he came over and kind of like pulled me up and it was just, it was unbelievable. He basically was like you’re beautiful. You’re going to be okay. Everything’s going to be okay. Just keep doing what you’re doing. You’re a strong girl. I got offstage and everyone around me was crying and it was just, it was amazing,” Porack says with a big smile.
She took her wig off right before jumping up on stage with Chesney. It was the first time her friends had seen her without it.
“That moment where I took it off and went on stage in front of all those people, it was one of the most empowering moments that I’ve ever had,” the fan adds. “It was almost just like I don’t care what people think of me. It is what it is. Like what do I have to hide at this point? So it was, for as hard as it was, it was so empowering and it was, I’m very, very happy that I did it.”
Kenny Chesney performed at AT&T Stadium in Dallas on Saturday night and was joined by a special guest.
The band played “Diggin’ Up Bones” from Randy Travis’s 1986 album Storms of Life as Chesney welcomed him onstage for a moment in the spotlight.
“Randy Travis paved the way and brought back country music,” Chesney said. “Like George Jones, he is an original and the real deal. It was great bringing him out for all the fans to see the man who brought so many young people to country music back in the ‘80s.”
Dallas Cowboys Cowboys owner Jerry Jones, as well as players Jason Witten, Travis Frederick, Zack Martin and Dan Bailey, were among the 46,273 fans at the show.
Kenny also two-stepped with Miranda Lambert to George Strait’s “The Fireman.”
Kenny Chesney kicked off his 2016 Spread The Love Tour with Miranda Lambert at Jordan Hare Stadium on the campus of Auburn University on Saturday night.
Country music stars Kenny Chesney and Miranda Lambert brought more than 50,000 fans to Jordan-Hare Stadium in Auburn on Saturday during the Music and Miracles Superfest.
The concert and served as the first official date of Chesney’s 2016 Spread the Love stadium tour. Old Dominion as well as former UAB quarterback Sam Hunt were also on the superfest’s line-up.
“There is something about college football that inspires me,” Chesney said when the concert was announced. “There is so much heart, so much dignity to playing for the honor of your school. There are, obviously, a lot of good times and great memories made at the games, and those guys on the teams play all out in ways most people don’t realize.
Every time I get to play somewhere with the kind of history Auburn has, it pushes me a little harder to really raise the bar. And the mission and heart behind Music & Miracles raises that bar higher still.”
Kenny Chesney made his way to Key West on Monday for a keg show at Sloppy Joe’s.
photo by Jill Trunnell
Rumors of the show began Friday, and once the news was confirmed, fans stood in line all night Sunday. The street in front of the venue was closed by 6 a.m. Monday, and Chesney and his band kicked off the music around 5 p.m.
Eric Church and Old Dominion‘s Matthew Ramsey made guest appearances, with Church performing several songs, including “Springsteen,” “Drink in My Hand” and “Mr. Misunderstood.” Ramsey, who co-wrote Chesney’s “Save It for a Rainy Day,” joined the headliner to perform the hit.
In addition to his own hits, Chesney’s set list included cover versions of the Kinks’ “You Really Got Me,” Willie Nelson’s “Whiskey River,” John Mellencamp’s “Hurts So Good,” Stevie Ray Vaughan’s “Pride and Joy,” George Strait’s “The Fireman” and “Carried Away,” Alabama’s “Dixieland Delight” and the Eagles’ “Take It Easy.”
On Friday night Kenny Chesney played the first of two concerts at Gillette Stadium in Foxborough, Massachusetts. The 
