Gillette Stadium sold 1,500 cowboy hats for this weekend’s Kenny Chesney concerts
Boston may be lacking dirt roads and farmland, but it sure isn’t lacking country music fans.
Around 110,000 country music fans attended Kenny Chesney’s Spread The Love Tour featuring Miranda Lambert, Sam Hunt, and Old Dominion at Gillette Stadium on Friday and Saturday.
In preparation, Gillette Stadium vendors estimated 1,500 cowboy hats were sold. That’s enough hats to line the length of Gillette’s football field almost four times.
And fans had every reason to get in the Chesney spirit. The country singer has played at Gillette Stadium more times than any other artist. The final two shows of his Spread The Love Tour this weekend marked his 14th and 15th shows at the home of the New England Patriots. Chesney, who was wearing a Patriots shirt, along with his cowboy hat, described the stadium as one of his favorite venues.
“All summer this is my favorite moment I look forward to,” he told Saturday’s crowd.
And that’s why he now plans to end his tours in Foxborough, he told The Boston Globe last year.
“Honestly, by the time we get to our two nights in Foxborough, our touring family is pretty tired. But it’s our last two nights of the year and we’re in New England, and that crowd always inspires us,” he said. “It’s become so special and so wonderful that my philosophy on it was, ‘How could we go anywhere else after that weekend?’ I want those two nights to be the last two crowds ringing in my head throughout the fall.”
Saturday night’s sentiment was no different.
In his tour closer, Chesney welcomed the crowd that he’s dubbed “No Shoes Nation” — after his hit single “No Shoes, No Shirt, No Problems”—with a video montage to the song. A banner bearing that phrase, which was given to Chesney as a gift from the Kraft family, also hung in the stadium like the Patriots’ championship and Super Bowl banners.
The banner wasn’t the only tribute to Boston throughout the evening.
Chesney performed his song “She’s From Boston,” for the first time on the tour. He told the crowd the only time he plays the song is when he’s in New England.
Chesney #Boston!!! pic.twitter.com/7SxkoHNGCp
— Will Gray (@WillGray945) August 28, 2016
He also gave “Boys Of Fall,” a meditation on football, its tour debut. Chesney paraded the stage with Patriots helmets, which he presented to three young women in attendance, along with a kiss on the forehead.
Chesney ended the show by bringing his crew on stage to thank them for their work throughout the tour. He got emotional toward at the end of his set, saying, “This is the best feeling I’ve ever felt in my life.”
“This weekend is special, this place, this stadium, is special,” he said. “I grew up in a town a lot like Foxborough. We worked hard, we played hard, we had our sports and our parents, and that’s it … New England treats me like family.”
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