Okay this is it Mesha, until tomorrow maybe, I do have one more day. This one is by far the best....he's one helluva kisser!
At Crew Stadium in Ohio, it’s a typical night at the office for the headliner. Backstage he commands a small army: 11 buses, 20 semitrailers, 115 crew, staff and musicians, plus assorted high-profile fans from the sports world. NFL linebacker Mike Vrabel, ESPN commentator Kirk Herbstreit, and former major-league pitcher Kent Mercker shake his hand, exchange hugs and toast their pal with beers (Chesney abstains pre-show, limiting himself to a low-cal dinner and water). He gathers with his band in a dressing room, where a newspaper photographer is waiting outside to snap a few pictures as they make their way toward the stage.
“Slowly,” he commands his bandmates as they turn the corner to face the camera. “And be iconic.”
The singer is clad in a sleeveless T-shirt, tight jeans and a palm-leaf straw cowboy hat. He leads a 13-piece band, replete with horns, percussion and as many as five guitars. At the foot of the three-tiered drum riser, a dozen brightly colored bras dangle from a stand, collected as offerings from the audience. That’s about as risqué as the show gets. Chesney is a PG entertainer, his two-hour concert slamming rapid-fire from one hit to the next as he surveys a 15-year career that has produced 20 No. 1 country singles, from the hackwork “She Thinks My Tractor’s Sexy” to Everyman anthems such as “Back Where I Come From.”
Not bad for a guy who came to music relatively late in life. As a kid he was obsessed with sports. As a baseball player, he modeled his game after “Charley Hustle” --- the now-disgraced baseball star Pete Rose who made his reputation with his all-out style.
He grew up hustling in Luttrell, Tenn., outside Knoxville, the son of a hairdresser mother and a schoolteacher father. His parents divorced when he was young, and his mother remarried to a construction worker. He describes a humble life that revolved around “friends, family, school, church … and girls.” He was one of 135 students in his 1986 high school graduating class
“We were lower-middle class and everyone I knew was --- we didn’t know there was anything different,” he says in his tour bus a few hours before the show. “I have this theory … this is a bit of curveball, but people who are really good kissers never have anything given to them. People who can’t kiss had everything given to them. I guess what I’m trying to say is, I’m a helluva kisser.”
Chesney laughs uproariously. In public, he wears his cowboy hat (or, in his more casual moments, a baseball cap) 24-7 to cover up a scalp that has been balding since he was 19. His muscular torso belies his smallish 5-foot-7-inch frame. Backstage, the 41-year-old singer could pass for a kid half his age, dressed down in baggy basketball shorts and hatless after a morning workout. He is a bundle of tightly wired energy with boyish, almost elfin facial features and ears. He is fighting a cold, but becomes animated in conversation, pondering questions while rubbing his face until it flushes red.
“Slowly,” he commands his bandmates as they turn the corner to face the camera. “And be iconic.”
The singer is clad in a sleeveless T-shirt, tight jeans and a palm-leaf straw cowboy hat. He leads a 13-piece band, replete with horns, percussion and as many as five guitars. At the foot of the three-tiered drum riser, a dozen brightly colored bras dangle from a stand, collected as offerings from the audience. That’s about as risqué as the show gets. Chesney is a PG entertainer, his two-hour concert slamming rapid-fire from one hit to the next as he surveys a 15-year career that has produced 20 No. 1 country singles, from the hackwork “She Thinks My Tractor’s Sexy” to Everyman anthems such as “Back Where I Come From.”
Not bad for a guy who came to music relatively late in life. As a kid he was obsessed with sports. As a baseball player, he modeled his game after “Charley Hustle” --- the now-disgraced baseball star Pete Rose who made his reputation with his all-out style.
He grew up hustling in Luttrell, Tenn., outside Knoxville, the son of a hairdresser mother and a schoolteacher father. His parents divorced when he was young, and his mother remarried to a construction worker. He describes a humble life that revolved around “friends, family, school, church … and girls.” He was one of 135 students in his 1986 high school graduating class
“We were lower-middle class and everyone I knew was --- we didn’t know there was anything different,” he says in his tour bus a few hours before the show. “I have this theory … this is a bit of curveball, but people who are really good kissers never have anything given to them. People who can’t kiss had everything given to them. I guess what I’m trying to say is, I’m a helluva kisser.”
Chesney laughs uproariously. In public, he wears his cowboy hat (or, in his more casual moments, a baseball cap) 24-7 to cover up a scalp that has been balding since he was 19. His muscular torso belies his smallish 5-foot-7-inch frame. Backstage, the 41-year-old singer could pass for a kid half his age, dressed down in baggy basketball shorts and hatless after a morning workout. He is a bundle of tightly wired energy with boyish, almost elfin facial features and ears. He is fighting a cold, but becomes animated in conversation, pondering questions while rubbing his face until it flushes red.
love it. thanks
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