WHASINGTON, DC (Kenny Chesney Official Website) - By the time
Kenny Chesney brought Van Halen's sometime frontman and rocker in his own right
Sammy Hagar out of the wings for a three song romp of "Rock Candy," "Where
Eagles Fly" and "Finish What You Started," the reigning Country
Music Association and Academy of Country
Music Entertainer of the Year had had the 45, 761 country fans on their feet and screaming for close to two hours. It was an unforgettable night in a career marked by some pretty potent milestones - 19.5 million records sold, being the fan-voted American
Music Awards Favorite Artist over Usher, Outkast,
Evanescence and Norah Jones, three successive years of over a million concert tickets sold each summer, headlining a homecoming show for over 67,000 at the University of Tennessee's Neyland Stadium and playing to over 70,000 the past two years at the
Houston Livestock Show and Rodeo - for the soft-spoken singer/songwriter from Luttrell, Tennessee.
"You have no idea until you're waist-deep into it what it takes to put one of these on," says Chesney of the 5-day preparations for FedEx Field. "And you also can't imagine what it feels like when that scrim drops, the curtain falls away - and there's that sea of people, who're cheering and the light bulbs are flashing. It's just this surge of energy and excitement. It's like plugging straight into 40,000 volts. Like I always seem to be saying: we throw it at 'em pretty hard every night, and every night, they throw it back at us even harder."
As an almost redux of the best of the past two years of tours that have sold in excess of one million tickets each - Chesney's special guests including Margaritas'n'Senorita's vet and reigning ACM and CMA Male Vocalist of the Year Keith Urban and "When The Sun Goes Down" duet partner Uncle Kracker, both legs of Somewhere In The Sun's babe and current ACM Female Vocalist of the Year Gretchen Wilson and Sun's newest recruit and multiple Grammy nominee Pat Green - it was a day of Chesney's kind of country: progressive, yet grounded in the roots, with just a slosh of the rock music all kids of the '80s were raised on.
But even more than special guest Sammy Hagar ("What IS the chance a kid from Luttrell would get to stand onstage and sing 'Finish What You Started' with SAMMY… HAGAR?" enthuses Chesney with utter-"Wayne's World" exuberance), there was another sneak appearance earlier in the day, as Marley, Chesney's 340 pound marlin, made an onstage appearance for the morning press conference.
In addition to tour production manager Ed Wannebo, who answered questions about the logistics and tonnage on the field, Marley was the object of much attention from "Entertainment Tonight," "Access Hollywood," "CNN," "Extra," "CMT Insider" and GAC's "Country Across America."
"We like to have fun out here," says Chesney with a cat-eating grin, tub of iced beverages at his feet. "You know that fish is as much a part of our road vibe as anything… and if you wanna give people a sense of what it feels like out here, especially at 10 o'clock in the morning, he probably says it better than any words I've got."
Somewhere In The Sun Stadium Sized rises again July 23 at Foxboro Stadium outside Boston - and hits its stride again July 30 at Heinz Field in Pittsburgh, where Chesney's ABC special will be filmed. In the meantime, folks can settle for the regular arena shows, as well as his upcoming "Tonight Show with Jay Leno" appearance on NBC June 23.
"It was a helluva night," the man who's revel anthem "Keg In The Closet" is currently scorching the charts. "I can't wait to do it again - and again."
