Las Vegas Weekly

April 28, 2009 · 12:32 AM

Two circuses (but only one ringleader) hit the Las Vegas stage

By Melissa Arseniuk

Kenny Chesney at The Joint in the Hard Rock Hotel on April 25.

Photo: Erik Kabik/Retna/www.erikkabikphoto.com

Two circus-themed tours rolled through Las Vegas this weekend, but when Kenny Chesney’s “Sun City Carnival” stopped at the Joint, it put on a very different show than the Britney Spears “Circus” spectacle at MGM Grand.

For starters, Chesney sang.

And sang and sang and sang. For about two and a half hours.

The Brit-Brit show, meanwhile, seemed like more of a sing-along for the most part, as she performed her karaoke-style routine for about 85 minutes. (And that’s counting the off-stage time that she took to change costumes, which she did a dozen times.)

Though Chesney didn’t dress up a sequined bodysuit or make a grand entrance (which he’s been known to do from time to time), the four-time Academy of Country Music Entertainer of the Year put on one heck of a show.

After losing the ACM distinction to Carrie Underwood earlier this year, Chesney seems determined to reclaim the title.

When the 41-year-old singer took to the stage just before 10 p.m. on Saturday, he was joined by what has to be close to the biggest backing band in country music.

Not including Chesney, on the stage were four guitarists, two drum kits, dueling keyboards, a bassist and a horn section that included two trumpets, an alto sax and a trombone. A banjo and a fiddle also worked their way into the mix, weaving in and out of the performance.

Meanwhile, a giant projection screen streamed song-specific images from the back of the stage. Chesney’s video team took a page from “How To Excite a Crowd 101” and showed shots of popular Vegas landmarks – including UNLV, the Griffin and, of course, the Hard Rock – during “Back Where I Come From.”

This, of course, was received with a roar of applause.

Most of the time, however, the imagery focused on fun in the summer sun spliced between footage shot out on tour. And the man who is country music’s modern day Jimmy Buffet has had some pretty wild tours.

Chesney is quoted in last month’s Playboy magazine as saying he enjoyed a five-year “blur” of non-stop fun during the mid-‘90s.

The fun stopped, at least briefly, in 2005 when he married actress Renee Zellweger. But that union ended four short months later, when Zellweger had the wedding annulled citing “fraud.”

The f-word unleashed a firestorm of rumors and questions surrounding singer’s sexuality. Many people, fans and critics alike, insist Chesney is gay.

Still, Chesney has repeatedly asserted his heterosexuality and dated accordingly. He recently hooked up with former Miss Tennessee USA, Amy Colley, but reports that they broke up started swirling just days before Chesney came to Las Vegas on April 21.

The crooner declared his love for women before things with the 24-year-old went south in the same, previously-mentioned Playboy piece.

“I’ve got a long line of girls who could testify that I am not gay,” he said, adding that he had marked the 100th notch on his belt back in 2001.

“I can’t believe I’m actually saying this on the record,” he said after proclaiming his promiscuity – but the boasting didn’t stop there.

“There were years when I had a better summer than A-Rod,” he said. “I got on the boards quite often.”

“My first five years on the road were intense because I was the guy in college who never got laid until I started playing guitar,” he said.

Since Chesney learned to play the guitar (and do other things) in college, his talents have flourished.

He was nominated for three ACM awards this year, including Top Male Vocalist, and while he didn’t win a statuette, he didn’t leave Las Vegas empty handed: The Playboy Club honored him with a key.

The night before his gig the Hard Rock, he was spotted at another Palms nightspot, enjoying a VIP table at Ghostbar.

Yet his pre-show partying didn’t seem to have any effect on Saturday night’s performance. The Knoxville, Tenn.-native cranked out one hit after the next, including “Summertime,” "I Go Back," "Anything But Mine," "Living in Fast Forward," "Don't Happen Twice," "She Thinks My Tractor's Sexy" and his most recent single, "Out Last Night.”

A visibly-pleased Chesney followed “When the Sun Goes Down” by saying, “I think Las Vegas is so much hotter when the Sun goes down."

The band left the stage after covering John Cougar Mellencamp’s “Jack and Diane,” but soon returned for what proved to be an epic encore.

Chesney and his boys reappeared at 11:30 p.m. and didn’t leave for an hour.

The 60-minute add-on served as a cover-infused karaoke session, as the singer handed the mic to one of his guitarists before passing it to his guitar tech and, later, to a member of his security team.

It was all hands on deck. Even opener Miranda Lambert reappeared at one point for a duet of the Bob Marley classic, “Every Little Thing's Gonna Be Alright.”

The visibly-intoxicated Lambert later staggered over to the horn section where she proceeded to further showcase her talents with a searing performance on air trumpet.

When Chesney finally released his band for an apparently much-needed bathroom break, he performed a solo version of Jimmy Buffet’s “Why Don’t We Get Drunk.”

He called the ballad “one of the best love songs, one of the most tender love songs that I think has ever been written.”

Afterward, the band returned for three more songs, brining the encore set list to a grand total of 16.

But while the band refused to throw in the towel, many in the audience weren’t so resilient and instead chose to wave the white flag. Dozens filed out of their seats and left the floor before the band called it a night – or would it be morning? – at 12:35 a.m.

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