TIckets for his show at Arrowhead in July go on sale Saturday. We talked to him this week.
He has recorded dozens of songs written by other people, but none has touched Kenny Chesney like “The Boys of Fall,” his most recent No. 1 single. The song, co-written by Casey Beathard and Dave Turnbull, is an ode to football, especially high school football teams, the men who coach them and the small towns that embrace them.
That journey was the making of the documentary “The Boys of Fall,” inspired by the video to the song. The documentary first aired on ESPN in August. Since mid-November, it has been available on DVD at Walmart.
Chesney spent much of his year away from touring, working on the documentary. He will return to the concert circuit next year, including a stop at Arrowhead Stadium on July 30 with the Zac Brown Band and others. Tickets go on sale today.
But for now, he’s talking about the video, which has nearly 4.5 million YouTube views. It opens with New Orleans Saints head coach Sean Payton addressing the football team at Naperville (Ill.) Central High School, his alma mater. His sermon is about relishing the present and appreciating the blessings and rituals that will soon be gone, specifically the thrill of Friday night football games.
“That feeling goes away and it doesn’t come every Friday,” he tells the team. “It comes when you get married. It comes when your child is born. So you get it, but you just don’t get it every Friday night.”
Chesney interviewed players and coaches like Peyton Manning, Brett Favre, Joe Namath, Bill Parcells, Texas coach Mack Brown and Ohio State head coach Jim Tressel, all of whom discuss the game and what it has meant to them For Chesney, football was a lifestyle, almost a religion, as it is in so many small towns. A lyric from the song goes: “In little towns like mine, that’s all they got / Newspaper clippings fill the coffee shops.”
“I grew up in an area where the town leans on the football team,” said Chesney, who was raised in Luttrell, Tenn., and played football at Gibbs High School. “That’s how it was in east Tennessee. Football was all we had.”
With that in mind, he began his project, hoping to convey what football meant to him.
“The video sent me on a path,” he said, “and the more I worked on it, I almost became obsessed with it.”
The film’s themes emerged quickly as the people he interviewed issued similar philosophies and advice.
“You grow up in a small town and you have big dreams or you see something you want, you think, ‘That can’t happen to me,’” he said. “I used to be one of those kids. I didn’t know how to go about pursuing a dream.
“One of my favorite parts of the film is when Bill Parcells says that he wants young kids out there who really have a passion for football to ignore the restraints, the voice in their heads that tells them, ‘You can’t.’”
The other theme, he said, came from the coaches and former players like Namath, who talked about how the game and life play off each other.
“Namath talks so much about how football is a team game,” Chesney said, “and he says, ‘It has taken me a long time to realize that life is a team game, too. You can’t do it alone.’”
The process of making the documentary and talking to so many successful and passionate men, he said, has profoundly changed his outlook on himself and his career.
“It awakened me as a person, and my life needed that,” he said. “So did my music. We all get in this mundane place now and then, and we need a bolt of energy to inspire us. Talking to all these guys and listening to the heart and passion they have for what they do. It inspired me to have the same kind of heart for what I do and to make the right choices and do things for the right reasons.”
The film has prompted scores of responses from players and coaches at all levels. Chesney said he received a two-page letter from two-time Heisman Trophy winner Archie Griffin: “He told me how much the song and the film meant to him and his family.”
He also received word from Sean Peyton about one high school player in Louisiana who had a change of heart after hearing the song.
“About a year and a half ago, this kid told his parents he didn’t want to play football anymore,” he said. “He’d played all his life and he wanted to take the summer off. He didn’t want to practice in 90-degree weather anymore. But after he heard the song, he sat down his parents at the kitchen table and told them he’d changed his mind. Sean wrote in big letters with a Sharpie, ‘This is why we do it.’
“That was the biggest blessing for me,” Chesney said. “Someone didn’t just listen to a song of mine; it altered his life. I don’t think I’ve ever had a song do that. I don’t think ‘When the Sun Goes Down’ has done that for anyone. Maybe … but I doubt it.”
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CHESNEY ON PLAYING ARROWHEAD:
Q: What’s the trade-off doing a stadium show instead of an arena or amphitheater?
A: I’d been doing the arenas and sheds (amphitheaters) for years, and I was really comfortable in my skin doing those. When I hit the stadiums seven or eight summers ago, it took a while to feel comfortable covering the ground I felt needed to be covered so I could touch everyone. A connection with my audience is something that has been part of my success — making them forget about things for a couple of hours.
So it took me a little bit before I felt like Il could go into a football stadium full of people and connect with everyone. Now, I’m pretty comfortable doing it. We don’t change much production-wise. We expand a little, maybe to more trucks of lights, but that’s about it. It’s pretty simple.
What’s it like to hit the stage and see 50,000 people in front of you?
It’s incredible. Awesome. To know that the music you’ve created and some of the songs you’ve written mean so much to so many people — I’ve loved seeing it grow into that. It’s a show, but our shows have become experiences. I love that about our crowd.
My fans work hard, and they play hard. And I’m like that, too. The two hours I’m up there, I don’t think about anything else. I love that shared experience. It’s what I love about live music.
You have a big and loyal fan base here. They always show up in big numbers when you play here.
Yes, and that’s why that night at Arrowhead is going to be special. I played Arrowhead once, several years ago, when I opened for George Strait. That was a long time ago. It will be special to be able to come back there like this and with the relationship I’ve had with the radio stations there and the fans who have watched all this happen.
I remember playing in some club at a mall right off the interstate, I think it was in Lee’s Summit. Is there a mall there? I played a club there one night and (former Major League pitcher) Rick Sutcliffe got on stage and sang “Grandpa Told Me So.” That’s how far back I go with fans in Kansas City.
So this Arrowhead show is kind of like a dream for me. It’s like a celebration of the relationships I’ve had with the fans and the radio stations there. Because a lot of those stations played those early songs when a lot of the country didn’t think it was cool to do so.
| Timothy Finn, The Star
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SATURDAY
Tickets for the July 30 Kenny Chesney Goin’ Coastal Tour concert at Arrowhead Stadium go on sale at 10 a.m. Saturday. Tickets are $36.70 to $241.30 (for the Sandbar Area). The Zac Brown Band and Billy Currington open. Tickets are available at www.ticketmaster.com.
oh oh oh ohoh ohoh oh I am sooooooooo Xcited about this ...... OOOOOHHHHHHHH!!!! Keith Chestnuts is my favoritest thingy of all time......... come on Saturday, I CANT WAIT!!!!! I hope we get the seats at the very top corner at the back of the massive football stadium, I AM SOOOOOOO EXCITED!!!
Posted by: Blueoody | December 06, 2010 at 02:47 PM
I mainly love Keith so much becasue he know playing a massive stadium is the best way for him to have a (and I quote) "A connection with my audience is something that has been part of my success"".
Nothing like seeing a concerty from 1/2 a mile away, 1 mile up in the air, to "feel that connection"... and that is why Chestnuts is the best ever...
Posted by: Blueoody | December 06, 2010 at 02:55 PM
I’m in Tampa and waiting forward for March 19th. Kenny will coming to Raymond James Stadium. Kenny’s music always gives a great passion and pleasure. County sucks!
Posted by: Kenny Chesney tickets | January 12, 2011 at 04:48 AM