Kenny Chesney Packs Soldier Field
Miranda Lambert Guests for 2; Massive Crowd Rocks for Over Two Hours
Chicago,
IL: Kenny Chesney’s been tearing it up at the stadiums this summer
with The Big Revival 2015 Tour. He’s broken his own record at
Pittsburgh’s Heinz Field with 55,381 and prompted The Dallas Morning News to opine “Two parts Mick Jagger, one part Bruce Springsteen and one part Billy Graham” after his Texas/AT&T Stadium show.
When Chesney flew over the heads of the assembled Chicago fans, the
roar was so deafening, it almost drowned out Chesney’s vocals on the
surging “Drink It Up.” In spite of unseasonable temperatures that saw
plenty of polar fleece among the sundresses, the crowd was warmed up and
only got hotter as the show went on. The 8-time Entertainer of the Year
even joked, “I tried to dress for the weather… I wore sleeves.”
“It was amazing to me, cold as it was, how loud and how hard Chicago
brought it,” the songwriter/gale force performer marveled after the
show. “To play somewhere as historic as Soldier Field is truly an honor –
and I think about it every time we’re there – but to have that
audience who’re so wild and willing to share the music, that makes it
one of those shows every single tour.”
Making her one appearance on The Big Revival 2015, Miranda Lambert
thrilled the crowd with her high velocity hit-packed set. But the
Grammy-winning vocalist really thrilled the crowd when she came back out
to sing “You and Tequila” with Chesney — as the cell phones aloft
filled the stadium. Their voices entwined with such a savory sweetness,
the pair decided to do another – a palpably electric, molasses-paced
take on George Strait’s “Carried Away.”
“Miranda is a fine artist and a world class singer,” the East
Tennessean said. “To be able to sing with her on ‘You and Tequila’ was
amazing, because of the grit she brings with the sweet. After that, we
couldn’t do just one. And man, there’s a woman who loves George Strait as much as I do, so she understands the core of what ‘Carried Away’ is all about.”
Referencing how appreciative he was to the fans coming out when the
Blackhawks were in the Stanley Cup Play-offs, the audience was marked by
No Shoes Nation flags, young women on their boyfriends’ shoulders and a
lot of signs for “Wild Child,” which Chesney performed a stark acoustic
rendition of on his weathered acoustic guitar before his band kicked
in.
“Maybe it was the year off, but every night we’ve gone out, the band and I can really feel
the crowd: their energy, their passion, the way they live these songs
as much as love them. It knocks the breath out of you a little, hearing
the way they sing something like ‘Anything But Mine’ or ‘I Go Back’ to
you… And I hope the No Shoes Nation knows that feeds us and pushes us to really take this music ever further.”
With four nominations for the CMT Video Music Awards – Video of the
Year and Male Video of the Year for “American Kids,” Collaborative Video
for “Wild Child” with Grace Potter and CMT Performance of the Year for
“American Kids” from “Instant Jam” filmed at the historic Georgia
Theater in Athens, GA, the man The Wall Street Journal called
“The King of the Road” will perform on the live telecast June 10 on CMT.
Then he heads to Charlotte, NC June 11 before hitting Atlanta’s Georgia
Stadium June 13.
Photo Credit: Jill Trunnell