Houston, TX. (Top40 Charts/ RCA Records) - The morning and mid-day rain should've put a damper on the parking lot partiers at Kenny Chesney's
Poets &
Pirates Tour stop at Houston's Reliant Stadium, yet the faithful could be found in ponchos, flips flops with radios blaring Saturday when Chesney hit the Bayou City.
"It never ceases to amaze me how committed my fans are to having a good time," laughs the man who's currently vaulting up the charts with the Calypso feeling "Everybody Wants To Go To Heaven" from his fall release Lucky Old Sun. "Rain or shine, they're gonna have a good time... and they don't let stuff like a little rain get them down."
And with Reliant Stadium being covered, once the fans were inside, the only weather was the sunshine and beaches that are the foundation of Chesney's music. With 47,669 people on hand, it was another huge day of friends, laughter, music and whatever memories were made.
"Houston is a great place for country music," Chesney says. "I remember when we set the attendance record at the Rodeo and Livestock show... and the year I'd hurt my foot and played it any way... Those are the kind of crowds and moments you never forget - and Reliant Stadium was another."
Ironically, Chesney - who trained with the New Orleans Saints last week - didn't have any of the NFL's Houston Texans on hand. Was it a protest over Chesney 's joining forces with their rivals? Some kind of good natured, "Oh, yeah!"?
Actually, with the Texans in New Orleans for a game against the Saints, both teams showed up at his New Orleans Arena show. It was a lot of huge guys in the hallways backstage, but - as is the always the case - the kind of camaraderie you'd expect when it was time for them to join Chesney for Mac McAnally's "Back Where I Come From."
"That's the thing about sports," Chesney says. "You compete as hard as you can... You dig in and you fight, and you give it everything you've got. But when the game's over, you know you played the best game you could, and that's that. Why not hang out and laugh about it?"
With the Sept. 13th closing show at Indianapolis ' Lucas Oil Stadium looming ever closer, it's been a summer and a half out on the Corona Extra-sponsored Poets & Pirates Tour. Football stadiums, arenas, amphitheatres, football players, baseball stars, the Next Big Star competition and a lot of laughs, it's less than a month 'til it's over. Though there's an appearance at the 23rd Farm Aid and Lucky Old Sun slated for later this fall, there's still plenty of Chesney to come.
