Three guests and surprise songs span career in celebrated moment
Twenty-four shows into a summer that’s seen the songwriter/superstar from East Tennessee shattering attendance records, besting his numbers and often moving his stage to the back wall, Kenny Chesney hit Los Angeles like a favorite son come home. Without missing a beat, he moved from a high velocity “Living in Fast Forward” to a surging medley of “Beer In Mexico,” “Keg In The Closet” and guitar-forward “KC/DC,” then a double time “Here And Now” as he returned to SoFi Stadium. The only country act – and second overall to the Rolling Stones – to bring two tours through the Inglewood, California-based venue, the crowd was up and ready for whatever the night might hold.
“You can tell when you hit the stage,” reflected the eight-time Entertainer of the Year, “when an audience is ready to bring everything they’ve got. No Shoes Nation more than showed up at SoFi; they sang hard, were on their feet from the beginning and really leaning into songs that set a positive vibe for living life in the moment.”
Beyond multiple week No. 1s “Summertime,” “Get Along,” “American Kids” and “Save It For A Rainy Day,” the East Tennessee native blazed through fan favorites “Somewhere With You,” “Never Wanted Nothing More,” “How Forever Feels” and “Young.” Even more thrilling: three special guests, who each joined Chesney for a pair of songs.
First up was Uncle Kracker, who romped through the pair’s five-week No. 1, double-platinum smash “When The Sun Goes Down,” followed by sharing Mentor Williams’ “Drift Away,” which Kracker took to No. 1 for 28 weeks on Billboard’s Adult Contemporary chart. That turned straight into a euphoric rendition of “All The Pretty Girls” with Megan Moroney, rolling into a romping rendition of “She Thinks My Tractor’s Sexy.”
But the evening’s biggest surprise was Kelsea Ballerini, who the stadium-sized headliner hadn’t realized was in California. Surprising him Saturday with an ask to come sing, the pair dueted on their Country Music Association award-winning “Half of My Hometown,” as well as a yearning rendition of Chesney’s Grace Potter pairing “You & Tequila.”
“The beauty of music, especially live music, is that every day is different, and every day it will surprise you,” he said after the show. “If you’re in the moment of it, you can sing with three really good friends in the same show, and know that will never happen again…”
Certainly, for an audience who bestowed Chesney with license plates invoking song titles from Arizona (DOWNDRD), California (LYKWEDO) and Nevada (1MRSNST), it was a night where music set the tone and delivered a kind of rapture that saw the crowd waving their arms from side-to-side song-after-song and taking chorus-after-chorus along with Chesney and band.
“It’s fun when my friends come out and sing with me,” Chesney says of the night’s collaborations. “It makes the music seem alive. It’s like hearing No Shoes Nation: that’s when all the happy and the magic come together.”
Presented by Blue Chair Bay Rum, it’s all about the friends, high energy and songs people know by heart.
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