For Immediate Release
18 March 2004
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Ride'Em, Island Boy!!!!
Kenny Chesney Sets The Houston Livestock Show & Rodeo Record: 70,668

   Houston, Texas: When Kenny Chesney debuted for the second time at #1 on Billboard's all-genre Top 200 Album charts with sales of nearly 600,000 copies of When The Sun Goes Down, it was obvious the soft-spoken man from Luttrell, Tennessee was on to something. But when he kicked off his Guitars, Tiki Bars & A Whole Lotta Love Tour at Houston's annual Livestock Show & Rodeo by shattering the record held by George Strait -- with sales of 70,668 -- it was obvious there's a whole lotta something going on.

   "This is crazy," says the reigning Academy of Country Music Top Male Vocalist and Single of the Year winner with a laugh. "People in Texas have always loved what we've done with country music -- and they know, too, boy. But when we left the road last year -- closing it down in Louisville with a bunch of my friends at the Kentucky State Fair -- I just didn't even think about where we were going, or what we were gonna do this year.

   "To walk out onstage to this… to this amazing crowd who were so there, so wild, so alive, so ready to hit it with us… well, you know… YOU KNOW?! You don't really know what to say. And somebody pointed out to us that this is even more people than we had at Neyland (Stadium, for his mind-bending "Back Where I Come From: Homecoming Party," which became a CMT special) last spring, which blows my mind. Because as anyone who knows me knows -- playing Neyland Stadium, where I grew up going to UT games, was a very big deal for me, for my guys, for all the people back home who have dreams they either believe in or who believed in our's along with us."

   Having been in technical rehearsals for almost two weeks, the Guitars, Tiki Bars & A Whole Lotta Love Tour -- which follows his Margaritas'n'Senoritas, the #3 ticket-selling tour behind only Bruce Springsteen and the Dave Matthews Band last year -- raises the bar for what fans can expect from the man who just spent seven weeks at #1 with "There Goes My Life" and is closing back in on #1 with his tropicolating Unkle Kracker duet "When The Sun Goes Down." Though the stage is cleaner and leaner on his Cruzan Rum-sponsored tour, allowing for a more physical show from Kenny & Co., this year's lights are merging several cutting edge approaches for a whole other level of vibe and excitement.

   Rounding out the opening weekend is Lafayette, Louisiana, Tupelo and Biloxi, Mississippi. And as the sun goes down, the tickets get gone -- with sell-outs in many of the markets this tour is slated to hit in a matter of a few hours or less! For those of you waiting for the keith urban/Dierks Bentley first leg to roll through your hometown, you can have Kenny at your front door this weekend -- as the laidback 15-million seller who Rolling Stone deemed "Nashville's Jimmy Buffett" is on the cover of USA Weekend this Sunday, March 21. In addition, Chesney will be performing the title track to the 30-days-and-double-platinum certified When The Sun Goes Down -- sans 2nd leg touring partner Unkle Kracker -- on "The Tonight Show" March 30.

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