Kenny Chesney just announced he'll be performing at Sphere for 12 dates in Las Vegas this summer! He stopped by the Bobby Bones Show to share all about the news and catch up on his life.
Performing at Sphere has been on Chesney's radar since he performed at Jimmy Buffet's tribute show at the Rose Bowl. Irving Azoff is one of Chesney's longtime friends, and he told him backstage that he needed to be the next one to play at Sphere. At the time, Chesney didn't know what he had on his schedule for 2025 because he planned to take most of the year off from touring to work on new music. But after going to tour Sphere, seeing some of U2's show, and "putting his body in it," Chesney looked at his veteran team and said "there's no way we're not, not doing this."
Chesney is so excited to take what they've built musically and with his fans into another state of consciousness with these shows because it's all submersive. He really believes this show will allow him to take his fans to the next level neurologically, and noted that any of his fans who have been to his other tours will not have seen anything like this before. Everything they're doing is different, new and fresh. Even the content they are shooting will be done in 36K thanks to the very special, limited edition cameras that exist inside Sphere. They've had to reshoot a whole bunch of content just so that they can show it at the venue. He also said this show will be more about experience than it will be about energy like his previous tours.
On another note, Bones wanted to know how Chesney stays so regimented. He actually never goes to bed at the same time every night, but he does wake up every morning at 5:30a no matter what time he went to bed. He gets a slow start to the day and then he always spends his morning right around 7 in the gym with his trainer. Chesney shared that in order to be so high energy and sing at his shows, he has to train for that. So to start every workout, he will run on the treadmill for 30 minutes while singing the first 30 minutes of his setlist. It helps him prepare his lungs and brain for the upcoming performances.
In talking about his music catalog, Chesney opened up about some of his songs. He thinks "There Goes My Life," "Anything But Mine, and "You and Tequila" are some of his best songs he's ever recorded. However, when he initially heard "You and Tequila," he heard it with a female vocal and it didn't resonate with him. The songwriter sent him the song with a male vocal and male perspective, and that's when he loved the song. When he recorded "Get Along," he knew the song was going to be a massive hit. He was on a writers trip with Josh Osborne and Shane McAnally, and they were playing Chesney a bunch of songs. That's when Osborne played "Get Along" and he loved it immediately. Another one of Chesney's big hits "Don't Blink," almost didn't get recorded. When Chesney first heard it, he couldn't put his brain around it because he didn't think it would fit in well with his high energy shows and it kind of sounded like a hallmark card.