Las Vegas Sun

March 29, 2024

MUSIC:

Kenny Chesney brings voice to his Carnival show

Country crooner keeps it real, in contrast to Britney Spears ‘Circus’ act

Kenny Chesney

Justin M. Bowen

Kenny Chesney performs at The Joint in the Hard Rock Hotel and Casino Saturday.

Kenny Chesney Rocks the Joint

Kenny Chesney performs at The Joint in the Hard Rock Hotel and Casino Saturday. Launch slideshow »

Two circus-themed tours rolled through Las Vegas this weekend but when Kenny Chesney’s “Sun City Carnival” stopped at the Joint, it put on a very different show than the Britney Spears “Circus” spectacle at MGM Grand.

For starters, Chesney sang.

And sang and sang and sang. For about two and a half hours.

The Brit-Brit show, meanwhile, seemed like more of a sing-along for the most part, and she performed her karaoke-style routine for about 85 minutes. (And that’s counting the off-stage time that she took to change costumes, which she did a dozen times.)

Though Chesney didn’t dress up a sequined bodysuit or make a grand entrance (which he’s been known to do from time to time) the four-time Academy of Country Music Entertainer of the Year put on one heck of a show.

After losing the ACM distinction to Carrie Underwood earlier this year, Chesney seems determined to reclaim the title.

When the 41-year-old singer took to the stage just before 10 p.m. on Saturday, he was joined by what has to be one, if not the, biggest back-up bands in country music.

On the stage were four guitarists (five if you count Chesney); two drum kits; dueling keyboards; a bassist; and a horn section that included two trumpets, an alto sax and a trombone.

A banjo and a fiddle also worked their way into the mix, weaving in and out of the performance.

Meanwhile, a giant projection screen streamed song-specific images from the back of the stage.

Chesney’s video team took a page from “How To Excite a Crowd 101” and showed shots of popular Vegas landmarks – including UNLV, the Griffin, and, of course, the Hard Rock – during “Back Where I Come From.”

This, of course, was received with a roar of applause.

Most of the time, however, the imagery focused on fun in the summer sun spliced between footage shot out on tour .

And the man who is country music’s modern day Jimmy Buffet has had some pretty wild tours.

Chesney is quoted in last month’s Playboy magazine saying how he enjoyed a five-year “blur” of non-stop fun during the mid-'90s.

“We would party on the bus after every show,” he told the pin-up mag.

The fun stopped, at least for a brief while, in 2005 when he married actress Renee Zellweger. But that union ended (and the fun resumed?) four short months later, when Zellweger had the wedding was annulled, citing “fraud.”

The f-word unleashed a firestorm of rumors and questions surrounding singer’s sexuality.

Many people, fans and critics alike, insist Chesney is gay.

Perhaps that is why there was an abundance of sustained “Brokeback Mountain”-style man hugs and cowboy-on-cowboy dancing at the Joint on Saturday. Not that there’s anything wrong with that; it was just in stark contrast to every other country concert in both recent and distant past. The scene was certainly nothing like the Alan Jackson show out in Primm earlier this month – mind you, it’s hard to compare Buffalo Bill’s Star of the Desert arena to the Hard Rock’s immaculate crown jewel of a venue.

Still, Chesney has repeatedly asserted his heterosexuality.

He recently dated former Miss Tennessee USA, Amy Colley, but reports that they broke up started swirling just days before Chesney came to Las Vegas, on April 21.

The crooner declared his love for women before things with the 24-year-old went south in the same, previously-mentioned Playboy piece.

He is quoted in article saying, “I love girls.”

“I’ve got a long line of girls who could testify that I am not gay,” he said, adding that he had marked the 100th notch on his belt back in 2001.

“I can’t believe I’m actually saying this on the record,” he said after proclaiming his promiscuity – but the boasting didn’t stop there.

“There were years when I had a better summer than A-Rod,” he said. “I got on the boards quite often.”

“My first five years on the road were intense because I was the guy in college who never got laid until I started playing guitar,” he said, while still noting, “I had a good time in college, I really did.”

Since Chesney learned to play the guitar (and other things) in college, his considerable talents have flourished.

He was nominated for three ACM awards this year, including Top Male Vocalist, and while he didn’t win a statuette, he didn’t leave Las Vegas empty handed: The Playboy Club honored him with a key.

The night before his gig the Hard Rock, he was spotted at another Palms nightspot, at a VIP table at Ghostbar.

Yet his pre-show partying didn’t seem to have any effect on Saturday night’s performance. The Knoxville, Tenn.-native cranked out one hit after the next, including “Summertime,” "I Go Back," "Anything But Mine," "Living in Fast Forward," "Don't Happen Twice," "She Thinks My Tractor's Sexy," and his most recent single, "Out Last Night.”

He slowed things down half way through his main set with a keyboard and saxophone-backed rendition of “Ordinary Boy,” then relieved the sax player for a moving, keys-and-vocals-only version of “There Goes My Life.”

Things quickly returned to high gear when the band returned.

A visibly-pleased Chesney followed “When the Sun Goes Down” by saying, “I think Las Vegas is so much hotter when the Sun goes down."

His band left the stage after covering John Cougar Mellencamp’s “Jack and Diane,” but soon returned for what proved to be an epic encore.

Chesney and his boys reappeared at 11:30 p.m. and didn’t leave for an hour.

The 60-minute add-on served as a cover-infused karaoke session, as the singer handed the mic to one of his guitarists before passing it to his guitar tech and, later, a member of his security team.

It was all hands on deck. One of the drummers also got in on the action, and opener Miranda Lambert reappeared at one point to a duet version of the Bob Marley’s classic, “Every Little Thing's Gonna Be Alright.”

The visibly-intoxicated Lambert later staggered over to the horn section where she proceeded to further showcase her talents with a searing performance on air trumpet.

When Chesney finally released his band for an apparently much-needed bathroom break, he performed a solo version of Jimmy Buffet’s “Why Don’t We Get Drunk.”

He called the ballad “one of the best love songs, one of the most tender love songs that I think has ever been written.”

Afterward, the band returned for three more songs, bringing the encore set list to a grand total of 16.

Chesney said he didn’t have to be anywhere early in the morning, so he figured he might as well play into the night.

But while the band refused to throw in the towel, many in the audience weren’t so resilient and instead chose to wave the white flag. Dozens upon dozens filed out of their seats and left the floor before the band called it a night – or would it be morning? – at 12:35 a.m.

Still, for those who were up for a big night of big country music, they got serious bang for their buck.

***

Red-hot up-and-comers Lady Antebellum opened the evening with a 25-minute set. The Nashville-based three-piece was backed by a band of the same size and lead singers Charles Kelley and Hillary Scott took turns shaking hands and signing autographs as they traded off on vocals.

After a 10-minute break, 25-year-old Miranda Lambert burst onto the stage with a cover of Beyoncé Knowles’ “Ring the Alarm.”

Dressed in tight distressed blue jeans, an animal print tank top, and a hooded black leather vest, Lambert took no prisoners. She rocked out, got all sweaty and messed up her already-messy long blonde hair.

She made two things clear: One, she’s no Taylor Swift, and two, hers ain’t your momma’s country.

OK, she made three things clear: She also can – and, if challenged, probably will – drink you under the table.

“I really like beer,” she confessed before proudly stating how she knows exactly how many miles it is from her front door to the nearest beer store.

“The ride to the beer store's not nearly as fun as the ride from the beer store,” she noted.

Again: She’s no Taylor Swift, and is far more "Gunpowder & Lead" than “Forever and Always.”

What’s more, Lambert’s bassist has a Mohawk and the guy who played slide guitar on Saturday wore a Beatles T-shirt under his stylish sport coat.

Again: hers ain’t your momma’s country.

Lambert had to interrupt herself at one point when horrified fans in the front row kept telling her that she was bleeding through her $240 William Rast jeans.

She just shrugged and laughed it off.

“Last weekend I was hog hunting and I cut my leg,” she said, unconcerned about the growing puddle of blood on her lower thigh.

“Really, it was no big deal,” she said. “I was drinkin' beer and I fell in the creek bed and cut my leg.”

She did note, however, that they weren’t just any jeans that she was bleeding through (William Rast is Justin Timberlake’s label) so JT, if you’re listening, you should really send her another pair.

And with that, she picked up where she left off and continued her set.

The rough-around-the-edges Texan showed her softer side at one point, however, when she sat on the side of the stage to sing, “More Like Her.”

It was a brief, however sweet, moment of calm.

But that moment was short lived and Lambert soon resumed the role as country’s raucous wild child.

Lambert covered Joan Jett’s "I Love Rock n’ Roll,” in what appeared to be a salute to fellow girl gone wild and Jett cover-singer, Britney Spears.

Lambert-Spears comparisons abound – they’re both young, hard-partying and tattooed blondes from the South.

But, for the record, fellow country star Blake Shelton serves as Lambert’s version of Kevin Federline (point: Lambert) and she has yet to check into rehab, get married/divorced, or give herself an early-morning buzz cut.

Oh, and Lambert writes her own songs, plays her own (very pink) guitar, and so far, has yet to hit bottom.

There was only one K-Fed/rehab/lip-synching gong show in town on Saturday, and it was over at the MGM Grand.

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