Kenny Chesney and Jason Aldean Sunday Night Review

Kenny Chesney and Jason Aldean just concluded their run of two nights at the home of the Minnesota Twins, Target Field, in downtown Minneapolis. The show was filled with a lot of music kicking off with up-and-coming band Old Dominion at 4:30 and didn’t wrap up until 11:00 with the co-headliners of Chesney and Aldean sharing the stage.

Old Dominion played through their EP quickly, but very energetically. The biggest reception the band received was when playing their biggest hit to date, ‘Break Up With Him’ which the band claimed that the Twin Cities played more than anywhere else. Partially surprisingly, Old Dominion did not break out any of the songs they wrote for other artists which include some big ones like the The Band Perry’s ‘Chainsaw’ and ‘Better Dig Two’, Tyler Farr’s ‘A Guy Walks Into A Bar’ and Dierks Bentley’s ‘Say You Do’. The band’s song ‘Nowhere Fast’ is currently getting a lot of play on SiriusXM’s The Highway, but did not find its way into the setlist.

Next up was Cole Swindell who also had a quick set, but had much more crowd capture thanks to having four big singles out on radio. Swindell played two songs that were non-singles off of his self-titled album, otherwise he played his current single ‘Let Me See Ya Girl’ and number one’s ‘Chillin’ It’, ‘Hope You Get Lonely Tonight’ and ‘Ain’t Worth The Whiskey’. Swindell’s set would not be the last time we saw the former Luke Bryan merchandise seller on the night.

Brantley Gilbert hit the stage next and surprisingly only played nine songs. For being the main opening act and two huge commercially loved albums, only nine songs from Gilbert was very surprising. An interesting set included almost all his radio-played singles, excluding ‘More Than Miles’. Gilbert needed some album cuts to fill out his nine songs which were taken more from his first big album ‘Halfway To Heaven’ than his latest ‘Just As I Am’. The only song Gilbert sang from ‘Just As I Am’ that hasn’t been a single was ‘Read Me My Rights’ which can only be found on the various special editions of the album. Gilbert paved the way for co-headliner Jason Aldean. Gilbert wrote a couple of Aldean’s biggest singles ‘Dirt Road Anthem’ and ‘My Kinda Party’.

Aldean came out with pageantry. The Georgia native’s set opened with a lot of fire and fireworks and almost too much. Aldean ran through almost every single he’s ever released to radio excluding a couple slower ones which the drunk party crowd at country concerts don’t exactly dig. Along with singles, Aldean made the smart move to play a couple additional cuts from his new album ‘Old Boots, New Dirt’ those songs being ‘Sweet Little Something’ and a surpriser of ‘Two Night Town’ which is a really good song, but is a lot slower than most of Aldean’s pumped up, muscled set. I’m a sucker for covers, because that’s typically only something you see in concert and Aldean pulled one out for the crowd on Sunday night with Tom Petty’s ‘I Won’t Back Down’. Aldean has just under 15 number one singles in his career and wrapped up his main set with one of his biggest, ‘She’s Country’.

Aldean’s energetic set definitely pumped up the crowd which got a bunch of people in the seats around us debating if Aldean shouldn’t have been the second of the co-headliners which, in my opinion, is a ludicrous idea. The set was so good though that 1/4 of the drunk 50-year-olds in the row ahead of us repeated the phrase ‘that’s how you win a concert’ about 10 times after Aldean was done.

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It also took until the Aldean set to realize that if you are afraid of heights, the Legends Club at Target Field might not be the place for you to attend a concert at. When a majority of the area is up and ‘dancing’, the Legends Club does shake up and down. It’s the closest thing you’ll ever feel to an earthquake in Minnesota, hopefully.

Chesney appeared in the middle of Target Field on a seat that brought him over the field seats and pit while breaking out a non-single from his latest ‘The Big Revival’ album. While Chesney finished up ‘Drink It Up’ and got his feet on solid ground, the lights went out and the Chesney portion of the party started. Chesney burned through 18 songs with the whole stadium singing along which was a very cool sounding feat. While Aldean was rocking, No Shoes Nation was singing every word back to Chesney and he was loving every moment of it. Chesney’s career majorly spans from 1995 through today and beyond and Chesney nicely mixed in songs from the early days of his career to the songs from his latest albums.

The thing about Chesney’s career is that he could do what the likes of Paul McCartney and Bruce Springsteen do by not having an opener and just doing three hours of their own stuff. Chesney has more than enough hits to do such a thing.

Chesney finished out his main set with a little help from opener Cole Swindell. Swindell joined on stage for ‘Don’t Happen Twice’, because that was the first song Swindell ever performed publicly when he started in college. After the song, the stage went dark, but the real cool stuff was just about to begin.

It wasn’t much of a break, but long enough to get Jason Aldean back on stage with Chesney. Aldean and Chesney then shared a four song encore set together trading verses to a song of their own and then two other classics. The night wrapped up with a rocking version of ‘Summer of ‘69’ which ended in a huge jam session from the band while Chesney and Aldean signed autographs for about anyone that wanted one that was located in the pit.

All in all, it wasn’t as great of a concert as Paul McCartney was last year at Target Field, but it was a memorable concert nonetheless. The concerts are not exactly apples to apples as McCartney is much more focused on the music while Chesney and Aldean is more focused on the party and selling a whole lot of beer.

I would not be shocked if Chesney is back at Target Field again next summer.

Brantley Gilbet Set

Kick It In The Sticks
Hell On Wheels
Small Town Throwdown
You Don’t Know Her Like I Do
One Hell Of An Amen
Bottoms Up
Take It Outside
Read Me My Rights
Country Must Be Country Wide

Jason Aldean Set

Hicktown
My Kinda Party
Tattoos On This Town
Amarillo Sky
Tonight Looks Good On You
Big Green Tractor
Johnny Cash
The Truth
Sweet Little Something
Take A Little Ride
Fly Over States
Two Night Town
Just Gettin’ Started
When She Says Baby
1994
Night Train
I Won’t Back Down
Burning It Down
Crazy Town
Dirt Road Anthem
She’s Country

Kenny Chesney Set

Drink It Up
Reality
Beer In Mexico
‘Til It’s Gone
Summertime
Pirate Flag
No Shoes, No Shirt, No Problems
Somewhere With You
I Go Back
Wild Child
Living In Fast Forward
Young
American Kids
Anything But Mine
When The Sun Goes Down
How Forever Feels
Out Last Night
Don’t Happen Twice (with Cole Swindell)

Chesney and Aldean Set

She Thinks My Tractor’s Sexy
Hurts So Good
Only Way I Know
Summer of ‘69

Next: Carlos Gomez back to Target Field?

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