It’s kind of wild to take a step back and look at how household names in the country music world came to be. Take Kenny Chesney for example… he dropped his first single in 1993, the same year that Shania Twain and Tim McGraw dropped their debut albums. But when you think about great ’90s country stars, the average country music fan wouldn’t drop Kenny Chesney as the first name off their list.
A testament to his longevity perhaps? I think so…
And then you have Eric Church. Eric kicked off his career in 2006 and while he had some immediate success, he didn’t really take off until his Chief record in 2011. And even when he was winning Entertainer of the Year awards… Eric has always been a bit of an outsider.
But believe it or not, Eric Church and Kenny Chesney were on tour together way back in 2013 on Kenny’s No Shoes Nation Tour along with Eli Young Band and this rising star known as Kacey Musgraves. Of Kacey would go on to be a Grammy-winning superstar .
Kenny, Eric and Kacey… just imagine that now?
Anyways, they went on to co-headline a few shows together during Kenny’s 2015 The Big Revival Tour, but the following year, Kenny was shaking the rust off with a bar show down in Key West. Kenny gave the fans a free “keg show” at Sloppy Joe’s bar, and you know he brought along some famous friends.
“Nothing gets us as in the mood to go out and play music for you all summer long quite like coming down to the Florida Keys and doing this show.”
And who did he bring? None other than Mr. Eric Church. Seeing Eric Church and Kenny Chesney in a little dive bar by the ocean? It doesn’t get much better than that.
“Mr. Misunderstood”
There really is nothing like seeing your favorite artists in a dive bar.
Of course, if you’re lucky enough, you were there in the early days when your favorite acts were playing them. Maybe they still are right now (in that case, soak it in now), but when they blow up and still come back to the intimate venues… it’s always special.
Zach Bryan just played a little dive bar gig a few days ago in New York City, and I saw Eric at Joe’s Bar a quite a few years back when he did an epic run a of 6 shows in 6 different cities on two nights… and I’ll never forget it. And I’m sure none of the people at Sloppy Joe’s will forget this.
“Drink In My Hand”