Backstage with Kenny Chesney

This week’s Countdown was recorded on location during Kenny Chesney’s Goin’ Coastal show at the new Meadowlands Stadium outside New York City.  The idea for this was born back in 2003 after Kenny played Neyland Stadium in Knoxville.  It was his very first stadium show, and the day before, as the crew set up the stage, Kenny went to the upper deck and sat in the seat farthest from the stage.  The idea was to see the stage from the perspective of a fan, and think about what he had to do to reach that fan from the stage.  He told that story to Country Countdown USA’s Lon Helton, and a tradition was born.  Kenny did the same thing at every subsequent stadium show.  This year, he began to capture the experience on video, which was shown to the audience before Kenny’s show.

We got to the stadium on Friday, the day before the concert.  It was a sunny but windy day.  When we arrived at the gate, Kenny’s rep was there to greet us, and said, “Kenny has a surprise for you.” That’s when we found out he wanted to do the interview from the upper deck.  We thought we’d be doing the interview either on Kenny’s bus, or in the Vibe Room backstage.  Fortunately, there were electrical outlets in the upper deck for our equipment.  We got some mic stands from the stage.   Then we hopped in golf carts for the long ride to do the interview.  Kenny went to the top of the stadium, and looked out.  You could see the New York skyline from that side of the stadium.  We pointed out where the World Trade Center had stood, and you could actually see the frame of the new Freedom Tower rising in its place.  Kenny took a bunch of pictures, and then Shawn Silva shot some video from the site. 

Then it was time to begin the interview.  It was about 5PM when we started the conversation.  The sun was still high in the sky, but it was very windy.  We were about ten miles from Newark Airport, so we had to stop the interview several times as planes flew overhead.   Lon’s first words were, “We’ve done a lot of interviews from a lot of places, but never from the top of the Meadowlands stadium. This is awesome.”  Kenny replied, “This is definitely the most unique that I’ve ever done an interview in.  It’s the calm before the storm.  We usually do the stadiums on Saturday, and so I do this on Friday, and we come up here and sit and take in the moment, and it’s a way for me to see how far I’ve gotta come emotionally, and how far we gotta bring the music.”

LISTEN TO KENNY: 11-38 Kenny1

 

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