Tag Archives: Kenny Chesney

Due to demand, Kenny Chesney adds second Grand Rapids show

Entertainment, , ,

By Mike Klompstra
Van Andel Arena

The first Grand Rapids show Kenny Chesney announced for April 6 at SMG-managed Van Andel Arena on his Songs for the Saints 2019 Tour sold out quickly. So quickly that a second show for Sunday, April 7, has been added.

Tickets go on sale to the general public beginning Friday, January 18 at 10:00 AM. Tickets will be available at the Van Andel Arena and DeVos Place® box offices, online at Ticketmaster.com, and charge by phone at 1-800-745-3000. See Ticketmaster.com for all pricing and availability.

After playing 19 major stadium concerts, breaking 11 records and playing to over 1.3 million members of No Shoes Nation, Kenny Chesney decided to scale things back, head to where the fans are and create a more intimate concert experience. Though known for his high impact shows, Songs for the Saints 2019 Tour is going to bring all the energy, all the intensity and all the songs to select markets.

“I wanted to bring the music to the people, knowing how many members of No Shoes Nation travel to see our stadium shows,” the man the Los Angeles Times hailed “The People’s Superstar” said of his 2019 tour. “To me, making the rooms a little smaller, coming to where the fans live, we’re changing the dynamic – and I think it’s going to be pretty cool. It’s a lot of people’s hometowns, and that’s always awesome energy.”

Joining the songwriter/superstar on Songs for the Saints 2019 Tour is good friend and hard country icon David Lee Murphy. Murphy’s feel good faith in the universe “Everything’s Gonna Be Alright” became his second and Chesney’s 29th No. 1 – and scored the pair the 2018 CMA Award for Musical Event of the Year.

With “Better Boat,” Chesney’s duet with Mindy Smith from the deeply personal Songs for the Saints climbing the charts, the 8-time Entertainer of the Year is turning his attention back to the fans, the music and the road. Profiled in The New York Times in early November for his intersective approach to music through sports, the man from East Tennessee believes in the power of music to heal people wherever they are.

“One thing people who’ve been coming to see us know is that every night, I tell people, ‘Whatever your problems are, I want you to leave them out there… and for one night, I want you to forget about it, and have the time of your life,’” he explains. “It’s not that we don’t have serious songs, or heartbreak songs, but I want people to feel what they need to feel, sing as loud as they can and have the kind of night everybody needs to feel the best part of being alive.”

Earlier this year, The New York Times further recognized that power, offering, “Everything country learned from arena rock is in the mix…the music gives him heroic, wide-open spaces,” while the Cleveland Plain Dealer offered, “Chesney makes you feel better, better about yourself, better about life,” and Variety noted, “Country Music’s only true long-term stadium act.”

“To me, songs are personal. That is until you play them for others. Now when I hear the audience singing along on “Noise,” or “Get Along,” or “American Kids,” it’s their song every bit as much as it’s mine. They throw so much light and heart on everything, even a sad one like “Anything But Mine,” the songs shine. So for us, getting out there and hearing these songs again just reminds us how powerful they are. And getting to take them to some places we’ve missed, playing some rooms where we can really see all the faces? That’s really awesome, too.”

Kenny Chesney gets intimate at Van Andel Arena, dates TBA

Citizen Journalism, Entertainment, Upcoming Events, ,

File photo

By Hilarie Carpenter, SMG

 

Having set and often broken his own records with 2018’s Trip Around the Sun Tour — including over a million fans at Foxborough’s Gillette Stadium and becoming the single biggest-seller at New Jersey’s MetLife Stadium — Kenny Chesney wanted to change things up. He knows his massive stadium shows are a rite of summer, playing to over a million people on every single tour, but the 8-time Entertainer of the Year wanted a little more intimacy for 2019 by taking the music to where the fans are.
“I wanted to change it up,” says Chesney. “Last year was so intense, and amazing. No Shoes Nation took it to a whole other level, and they blew all of us away. It was the kind of energy you don’t take for granted. So when we started thinking about next year, they made me wanna come to them. Rather than the massive two-day set-up, make everyone come to a stadium away from their homes, I wanted to go to where the fans live… strip things back a bit, and do make it a little more intimate.”
“I love reaching to the very top, the very back of a football stadium, but I also love the idea of really being able to see the back of the room.”
So, after much speculation, Kenny Chesney announces his Songs for the Saints 2019 Tour. Initial dates include Champaign, Illinois, Grand Rapids, Michigan and Tuscaloosa, Alabama, making Songs for the Saints 2019 Tour a decidedly different kind of tour. Focusing on the heartland, MidAtlantic and South over the course of three months, it’s a chance for the songwriter/superstar from East Tennessee to get into several cities without stadiums — and Chesney is fired up about the prospects.
“Sometimes it’s about stripping things back, and creating a different kind of experience,” says the only country artist on Billboard’s Top 10 Touring Acts of the Last 25 Years. “Making Songs for the Saints really showed me the power of bringing things closer to the heart. For me, I wanted 2019 on the road to get the music to the fans, right where they live, and as always, my team figured out exactly how to help me do that.”
For Chesney, the man Variety called “Country music’s only true long-term stadium act” and about whom USA Today hailed, “Chesney’s charisma stretched to the back rows of the stadium,” Songs for the Saints 2019 Tour makes good on everything his career has been built on. Having spent 2018 writing and recording Songs for the Saints, spearheading island recovery efforts in the U.S. and British Virgin Islands through his Love for Love City Fund, playing 19 stadiums and 43 dates, his focus has been on how music makes a difference.
“This is the kind of thing you do for passion,” Chesney explains. “To rein things in a bit, change up the way we present the music, I know these songs will show us things they don’t when we’re in those massive stadiums. I never worry about the energy or the passion, but I think the songs are different depending on where you play them. So I’m fired up for 2019.”