Kenny Chesney vowed his second residency at Vegas’ Sphere would make a shift, leaning into the venue’s ability to consume fans – and from the moment the East Tennessee songwriter/superstar hit the stage with “Here And Now,” he delivered. Beyond the fresh visuals, set changes and 29 songs, there was a momentum to the show that swept No Shoes Nation up for a night that took them places, brought emotions and memories to the surface and dancing to every level of Sphere’s four-tiered, 366-foot vertical leveled venue.
Without missing a beat, Chesney rolled into “Livin’ In Fast Forward,” “Young,” “Beer In Mexico,” “Keg In The Closet” and “Til It’s Gone.” Beyond the momentum, there was a sense of how much of Chesney’s music had consumed the lives of the sold-out almost 17,000 fans who’d journeyed from across the country. If not a sacred space, the fans found plenty to cheer for – and sing along with – over the course of a night that included the Jamaica-friendly “Everybody Wants To Go To Heaven,” followed by a whirling “Guitars, Tiki Bars (& A Whole Lotta Love)” that went double, then double-double time at the end.
“Sphere lets you really consider the tempos, lets you take liberties and risks,” Chesney said of his bold set choices after the show, “and it creates an intimacy that lets you really pull people to you. You can do things here you can’t anywhere else.”
Whether that meant a slow-burning erotic take on “Come Over,” matched with moody black and white reimagining of deep desire, “Noise,” which created a vortex of all the emotionally and visually charged things that overload us, swirling to a black hole at the top before dissolving into a quiet tableau, or the surging “All The Pretty Girls,” delivered in an aquarium of neon mermaids, the moods were plenty, the audience was primed and hung on every moment and emotion. Even “Carry On,” Chesney’s history-making new single, brought the joy-of-living to life on a stage that seemed to place the crowd at a perfect tropical beach music festival.
“Sphere lets me take people back home with ‘I Go Back,’ to piers that don’t exist for ‘Til It’s Gone,’ flying through downtown Los Angeles for ‘Settin’ The World on Fire,’ inside a pinball machine with ‘Big Star’ and some of my favorite places in ‘When I See This Bar,’” Chesney offered after the show. “You can take them, give them even more of what the song is…”
Making “When I See This Bar” even more was the surprise appearance of good friend and fellow superstar Eric Church, who ambled onstage in signature sunglasses, bringing a cool vibe. Sharing the moment – and several moments the pair had shared, including Church’s last-minute filling in for a sick artist at Chesney’s Country Music Hall of Fame induction, the pair delivered a reflective moment homaging their roots. Asking his friend if he’d like to do a couple, Chesney turned fan, joining the crowd for the choruses of Church’s “Drink In My Hand,” then laughing and sharing about forgotten lyrics during Church’s blanking, then starting over celebratory “Springsteen.”
For the fans, some of whom had been derailed by weather and technical problems out of Boston, traveling all night through New York, Los Angeles and anywhere there was a connection, the passion was set on stun. Even the intimate “Knowing You” was met with massive cheers, while the set closing “Out Last Night” rippled with both the promise and the zest of all the fun one can have when chasing a good time.
After almost 90 seconds of cheers, Chesney returned for a three-song encore that nailed every groove, phase and reality of his career. Kicking into the multi-rhythmic, double chorused “American Kids,” the capacity crowd practically levitated with euphoric self-identification, then melted into the yearning look back “Anything But Mine.”
With the audience clearly wrung out, Chesney offered an early career classic wrapped in chamois-feeling warmth to send the first show’s crowd into the night. Dropping into the memories, he brought “Don’t Happen Twice” to a high simmer, waved, signed and reminded the crowd – as Las Vegas Review-Journal wrote on Friday – of one of his most intoxicating superpowers: “he’d learned how to infuse his songs with real life, these people and their stories.”
“To me, these songs I sing aren’t just mine, they’re all of ours,” Chesney offered during his post-show wind-down. “If we can sing them true, play deep and just surrender to what they say, we can connect on a whole other level here. It was a lot of feelings, a lot of years, but man, did we feel it, and the love, and all the passion people bring.
“Whether it was Eric and his family coming all the way across the country to be part of kick-off, the people down front singing every word – or the people near the top holding up their phones with flames burning, I could feel it all, and whatta feeling.”
Photo Credit: Allister Ann
