NASHVILLE, TN. (BNA Records) - He'd smashed
Dave Matthews attendance record the night before and they'd had to hold the show for 30 minutes to get the 21,761 people off the St. Louis freeways and into the parking lot, but
Kenny Chesney was hardly ready for the traffic jam onstage at Nashville's Gaylord Entertainment Center. The 6-time Country
Music Association Awards nominee'd just finished "I Go Back," when he looked up to see his his business people moving towards him with an apology.
"Kenny, we know we told you that you were all done for the year," said legendary manager Dale Morris, "but you KNOW how us managers are…There are a couple things you've gotta do before you shut it down."
"We've got the chairman of your record company Joe Galante and your tour promoter Louis Messina to talk to you about it…" co-manager Clint High picked up without missing a beat.
The two top shelf executives emerged from the wings - one carrying a platinum ticket, the other joined by RCA Label Group General Manager Butch Waugh and a giant plaque commemorating sales of over three million copies for When The Sun Goes Down. It's not something the fans are ever part of, so when the sold out four times over crowd realized, the roars was so loud, a clearly emotional Chesney's response couldn't be heard in the house.
After a few moments, Chesney waved his arms, flashed his million dollar smile and proclaimed, "Well, I guess now we've got a lot more things to party about…" and kicked into his down home definition of who he (and his crowd) is: "Back Where I Come From." Though the man whose spent 12 weeks at No 1 on the Country Singles chart and debuted at No 1 on Billboard's all-genre Top 200 Albums chart with sales of over 550,000 should be getting used to these sorts of interruptions and eruptions!
At mid-year Chesney was the No 3 total ticket-seller behind Prince and Britney Spears - and according to tour promoter Louis Messina, who presented the ticket stub for 1,197,992 tickets sold on a much shorter tour, "You are now officially the biggest ticket seller in any kind of music."
And that means a gross in excess of $64 million that includes setting a new attendance record at the famed Houston Rodeo & Livestock Show - of over 70,000, the highest grossing country show in the history of the Tacoma Dome, having a second show sell-out faster than a flashfire in Raleigh, North Carolina (the only market that demand could be accommodated) and no Neyland Stadium to factor in.
"They tell me it took us 75 shows to hit this platinum ticket last year," says the aw-struck songwriter from Luttrell, Tennessee, "and that this year, we hit it in 64 shows. You know, all I see are the faces. The fans who make what we do mean so damn much… and I don't think in terms of counts or turnstiles. And in the middle of the show, I didn't think about it either, but now, well... it's hard to get your head around."
There are plenty more numbers for the soft-spoken superstar to get his head around. Besides having total album sales in excess of 16.8 million total, When The Sun Goes Down is not only the best-selling country album of 2004, but it sits at No 3 for total sales in any genre behind Usher and Norah Jones. And while the tour is over for this year, his record sales are hardly slowing down...
Look for Chesney at the 2004 Country Music Association Awards - where he's up for Entertainer, Male, Album of the Year for When The Sun Goes Down (also producer of the year) and a pair of Vocal Event nods - and anywhere there's a parasol drink with some Cruzan Rum in it. It's been a big year... and only getting bigger.
