No Shoes Nation Tour

Event Details:

No Shoes Nation Tour

Featuring:
Kenny Chesney
Eli Young Band
Kacey Musgraves

Blossom Music Center
1145 West Steels Corners Road
Cuyahoga Falls OH 44223

Thursday, June 20, 2013

Kenny Chesney
When Kenny Chesney pulled the plug on what would have been his 2010 tour in August of last year, he had accomplished almost unprecedented things. He's played NFL football stadiums by the dozen, received 4 Country Music Association as well as 4 consecutive Academy of Country Music Entertainer of the Year Awards, had nineteen #1 singles, duets with Dave Matthews ("I'm Alive"), Mac McAnally ("Down The Road") and Uncle Kracker ("When The Sun Goes Down") and has sold over 27 million albums including the quadruple platinum CMA Album of the Year When The Sun Goes Down and the two highly introspective singer/songwriter-driven Be As You Are: Songs from an Old Blue Chair and Lucky Old Sun. He co-produced a critically-acclaimed album on Willie Nelson and is the only artist in any genre to sell over a million tickets each of the past eight summers - and that was before the Sony Motion Pictures national theatrical release, "Kenny Chesney: Summer in 3-D," and the 90-minute documentary "The Boys of Fall," which showcases the impact of high school football and features some of the game's most enduring coaches and players at the pro, college and high school levels. Now, Chesney has released what will perhaps become his most enduring album, Hemingway's Whiskey.

"I just knew I'd had my foot on the gas for a long, long time," says the high energy performer. "I'd gotten signed to BNA Records in 1995, and I'd never let up. I was able to do things I didn't even know to dream, but in the work and the rush of it, things started to become a blur... and I knew it.

"I also knew that was not the reason I'd come to town: to just get on the treadmill and not look up. I loved songs, I loved artists... and I loved the process of making music. Suddenly, it was all deadlines and it didn't feel right. So I did what a lot of people have now told me was the unthinkable: I decided to stop everything for a year, to refocus on some personal projects and really think about my music and where I wanted to go. I am so glad that I did."

With his foot "off the gas," Chesney exhaled - and considered where the music had brought him, what it meant to the fans that came back year after year and how to expand on what is easily one of contemporary music's most vital communities. "The more I thought about it, especially working on 'Summer in 3-D,' which is as much a love letter to the fans who've lived these songs and their relationship to the music, the more I realized: this music is something they live right where they are, too.

Eli Young Band
It’s a crazy-good story. The Eli Young Band—four musicians who met during their college days in Texas—is now 11 years into a career built on touring without a single lineup change. That dedication is paying off big-time as the band enjoys a crazy new level of success. They sell a crazy amount of tickets. Get a crazy amount of airplay. And are selling a crazy amount of downloads—EYB received their first platinum record for "Crazy Girl" and have sold over 1.5 million downloads of the track.

Penned by fellow artist Lee Brice and Nashville songwriter Liz Rose (“You Belong With Me”), “Crazy Girl” is a perfect introduction to Life At Best, a 14-track album that takes the band’s wide-ranging multi-genre influences and distills them into a focused, engaging vision: edgy country with hints of heartland rock bands such as Tom Petty and classic Eagles.

Produced by Mike Wrucke with executive producer Frank Liddell (a team noted for its award-winning work with Miranda Lambert), Life At Best takes the listener on a journey, winding through songscapes that walk a delicate line. There’s a distinct variance from track to track as EYB veers from energetic quasi-rockers to steel-ladled country songs to conflicted ballads. And yet the album maintains a singular identity, built around a sound that’s been masterfully created over the course of three studio albums.

“We were able to just go in and record the entire record all in the same time period, and so you’re in the same state of mind the entire time you’re recording,” lead singer Mike Eli notes. “There’s something to be said about that when you’re creating music, and I think this album demonstrates it. There’s a degree of cohesiveness with this record that I don’t think we’ve had with our prior records.”

Kacey Musgraves
Universal Music Group Nashville singer/songwriter Kacey Musgraves, 24, recently completed recording her debut album and released her first single “Merry Go Round” to radio September 10. The single was greeted with massive critical acclaim (Billboard, Rolling Stone, NY Post) and is currently inside the top 25 on the charts. The album was co-produced by Kacey, Shane McAnally and Luke Laird and is set for release in the spring 2013.

Kacey, a Texas native, began singing publicly at 8-years-old and wrote her first song at 9-years-old. To date, that talent has produced cuts for multi-platinum artists such as Martina McBride and Miranda Lambert. Miranda’s current album includes Kacey’s co-written track “Mama’s Broken Heart” which Rolling Stone Magazine ranked #26 in their “50 Best Singles of 2011” list.

Musical influences range from Loretta Lynn and John Prine to bands like Cake and The Beach Boys. Kacey was honored to open for Willie Nelson last year and recently wrapped opening for Lady Antebellum in Europe and Alison Krauss in the US. She will be featured as a special guest on Little Big Town’s upcoming The Tornado Tour, which launches January 31, 2013 and will also be an opener on Kenny Chesney’s No Shoes Nation tour spring/summer of 2013.