After a summer of Boy Scout camp, band camp, drum major camp and American Legion Auxiliary Girls State camp not to mention college tours, it feels good to be back behind the camera again and there is no better way than with Kenny Chesney’s Trip Around the Sun Tour.
Kenny has been shattering his own attendance records since the tour started at Tampa’s Raymond James Stadium with 55,292 fans and 57,528 at Kansas City’s Arrowhead Stadium. Can Chesney break the 60,000 mark at Soldier Field this weekend? With a few tickets still available and some prices half the cost of most summers tours, Kenny Chesney’s Trip Around the Sun Tour has placed him on Pollstar’s midyear survey of the year’s biggest tours. LA Times’ hails Kenny Chesney as “The People’s Superstar” joins Taylor Swift, the Rolling Stones, Jay-Z and Beyoncé, Bruno Mars, U2, Justin Timberlake, the Eagles and Pink in the Top 10.
“What we do isn’t just country,” says the man who’s also the only country act in Billboard’s Top 10 Touring Acts of the Last 25 Years, “it’s life. For the people who come every summer, whether they love rock or pop or whatever, they’re gonna feel the music, but they also know they’ve lived these songs. For me, it’s the artists who rock me, who make me feel something, whose music is part of my life that I go back to again and again, and that’s what I try to give the fans every single night we hit the stage.”
Chesney’s 30th no. 1 hit “Get Along” also broke a Billboard record for Most No. 1’s by a Country Act in their Country Airplay chart history “Music is medicine, and it’s energy, and it’s fuel,” says Kenny. “To me, when music is really firing, it can help you do impossible things, lift you out of unthinkable problems and give you a reason to keep going. I hope the fans who come get as much out of the shows as everyone in my road family gets out of the energy and love that No Shoes Nation throws at us every night.”
With Over 15 Stadiums this summer and fan friendly ticket pricing Kenny Chesney has cemented his place as one must see tours again this year. This year tour opens with Brandon Lay, Old Dominion, and Thomas Rhett.
Brandon Lay is the newest artist on the tour you may not be familiar yet but those of us with SiriusXM The Highway have been listening to “Speakers, Bleachers and Preachers“ for several months now. When asked about his the new single “I knew coming out of the gate as a new artist that my first single had to say a lot about who I am and where I come from. Hopefully, people will hear it and fill in their own blanks,” Brandon says. “That’s my goal: for listeners to know that every line I’m singing, I’ve lived, and for them to find their own story in my songs.”
This was the first time I have seen Brandon, and I was impressed. For a newer artist he has a good stage presence and interacted well with the crowd. His short set leaves you looking for more from him.
Old Dominion set list sets you up for what’s to come with “Song for Another Time” and “Snapback”.
Matthew Ramsey (at Right) along with band mates Brad Tursi, Geoff Sprung, Trevor Rosen and Whit Sellers have been with both Kenny Chesney before on the Spread the Love Tour. Most recently they had some select dates with tour mate Thomas Rhett on the Home Team tour in 2017.
Thomas Rhett has a set list fit for a headliner! His set list is peppered with top 10 hits including “T-Shirt”, “Star of the Show” and “Unforgettable”. Its will be a race to see which of these two will be headlining next year!
The 8-time Academy of Country Music and Country Music Association Entertainer of the Year Kenny Chesney release a very personal homage to the Virgin Islands, titled Songs for the Saints. “I didn’t necessarily have ‘a plan,’ but these songs needed to be written,” Chesney said in a recent interview. “And a friend said, ‘You should call the album Songs for the Saints, make it something that honors the people and the life on those islands, but also provides for them long after what happened has fallen off the news cycle.’ It hit me, that was what I was already doing and hadn’t realized it.” After Hurricanes Irma and Maria struck the Caribbean, Chesney set up the Love for Love City fund. By Supplying generators, medical supplies, food, water, and more to those in need.
“I don’t do this for the awards or the competition. I do this to write my life and share it with others. When you realize how much you share, whether it’s ‘Get Along,’ or the way a show on a hot summer night makes you feel, that’s what all this is for: coming together. It’s why Songs for the Saints matters, because No Shoes Nation can live inside that world – and also with buying the record, knowing that money is helping rebuild those islands.”
It’s been 3 years since Chesney had performed in Chicago and at times you could see the emotion over take him, between the release of the album and the sellout crowd filling Solider Field and singing every song. If you haven’t had a chance to see Chesney this year, make plans now. The Trip Around the Sun Tour is making its way east, with stops in Detroit, Nashville and two nights at Gillette Stadium still to come.
Purrrfect Photography 