NASHVILLE, TN. (BNA Records) - When you're following up the second biggest tour of the year - behind no less than Prince's awesome multi-night stand in many cities Musicology - you need to really get your game on, so Kenny Chesney's been taking his Somewhere In The Sun Tour seriously.
The stage - which was trucked in from Torrance by 15 trucks - has been erected now for over almost two weeks, the band began rehearsing on it in the middle of last week. Special guest
Gretchen Wilson will get her turn on it shortly.
The reason for this amount of rehearsal time? The sheer size.
"We're having to play a lot more arenas this year, because the outdoor venues can't handle the staging and light trusses," says the reigning Country Music Association Entertainer of the Year.
"It's bigger than Van Halen's Diver Down Tour, which I saw when I was in high school - and I thought was about the biggest thing I'd ever seen! But when we got bigger, I wanted to make the lines cleaner, so everybody could see everything that was going on no matter where they were sitting. THAT was a really big deal for us."
Built by California-based All Access Staging - who've done the stages for all the Lollapaloozas, as well as stages Dave Matthews, Tom Petty, KISS, Fleetwood Mac, Incubus and Madonna - the actual design was a collaboration between Chesney, production manager Ed Wannebo and lightning designer Mike Swinford. And the renderings were being rendered long before the 1.2 million ticket-selling Guitars, Tiki Bars & A Whole Lot of Love Tour was over.
"We had pictures of this VERY stage during the second leg, asking ourselves if we could build it. If it would give us the room to move that we really wanted," confesses the man whose single-less Be As You Are debuted at #1 on Billboard's all-genre Top 200 and sits at #1 on their Country Albums chart today. "That's the thing about this band - and okay, me - we like to run around and have fun up there."
With over 240 feet of stage frontage - due to the extended T which creates the standing room general admission Sand Bars, designed to get the fans even closer to the show - there's 400% more fan accessibility than with the traditional 60 foot front row. And the unconventional design also allows the Luttrell, Tennessean to be surrounded by the fans on 3 sides.
"If you wanna see the energy go through the roof, we're thinking this'll do it," admits the man whose CMA Album of the Year When The Sun Goes Down is closing in on the same quadruple platinum status as his No Shoes, No Shirt, No Problems and Greatest Hits. "As hard as we rock, the fans rock harder. We figured that since we know that going in, let's figure out how to make the most of it."
In addition, Chesney's employing vertical video screens this year, hydraulic lifts as part of the staging and all of the primary lighting rigs will be fully-automated through a Grand M.A. Computer Console. And for the fans who're very particular about their sound - this year, there will 125 individually controlled amps in the sound system capable of generating 280,000 watts.
"I don't know what all the technical stuff means," Chesney allows with a laugh, "except that we're gonna be able to give the fans the best show ever. I try to do the kinds of shows I'd've wanted to see, with the best quality there is… and when you can get that exacting - and a stage like this - I'd say we've got it pretty specific."
With Somewhere In The Sun kicking off with a doubleplay in Green Bay, Wisconsin March 10-11, following a Houston Livestock Show & Rodeo performance on March 9 - where Chesney currently holds the attendance record, his "Anything But Mine" leaps from 11* to 7* on both the Billboard and Radio & Records Country Singles charts. Not bad for a guy who'se "technically" been off for 6 months.
