To Keg, Or Not To Keg Chesney Weighs Scrapping Guerilla Bar Run After Club's Site Is Hacked

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To Keg, Or Not To Keg Chesney Weighs Scrapping Guerilla Bar Run After Club's Site Is Hacked
Submitted By Liz Fulghum
Feb 15, 2008

Tuscaloosa, AL: If you've played the club three times on the first three Keg In The Closet Tours, you can be pretty sure the management knows how to keep a secret. Yet somehow news of a tentative Keg In The Closet play at the Jupiter Bar & Grille was hacked off an inactive page on the website for one of the University of Alabama's favorite bars, and it ended up on the comment portion of www.kennychesney.com.

“You know, this thing is pretty unwieldy as it is,” cautions the man who's already sold out Foxboro, MA's Gillette Stadium in 15 minutes for his full-blown hardcore Poets & Pirates Tour, “and if it gets too out of control, we just can't do it. I mean, the spirit of this has always been for me and the guys to get out, get a little sloppy, play a buncha songs we love and have a good time. It's supposed to be loose, easy and in the moment.

“But if this kind of craziness is already happening, it means we may've hit the point where we can't do it anymore. I'd hate that, but these clubs can't handle that kind of crowding - and I don't wanna put them through it. It's a shame … it's a lotta fun for everybody, and it's always seemed like the people who didn't get in were good sports about it.”

Over the past five years, Chesney has played the local fave bars for Auburn, Florida State, Louisiana State, Mississippi State, the Universities of Alabama, Florida, Georgia, Virginia and Virginia Tech, as well as a couple dive bars in the Florida Keys. Only one show was ever cancelled - one where the tickets were never made available to the students, but were distributed by the club owner.

“I know everybody wants to be there, but the idea is to let it be a surprise, give it back to the kids on those campuses,” allows the man who's sitting at #5 with the percolating clock-puncher “Shiftwork.” “We pulled a show because someone decided they were gonna hand out the tickets, and if it's gonna turn into something that's not the spirit of what we're trying to do, then it's probably time to stop. Certainly, it makes it just about impossible to go into a club that's always been great to us and get it.”

As much about getting the kinks out after six months off, Keg In The Closet has always been a show where the door goes to local charities, the band all gets their shot to sing and Chesney gets to play a lot of songs you'll never hear on the year's Poets & Pirates Tour, sponsored by Corona Extra. For the only artist to sell in excess of a million tickets each of the past six years, this is his one chance to bring it back to the bar-sized rooms where he started.

“Maybe folks can figure it out. Let it be … or know we just can't. I know everything has a season, so it might be for Keg In The Closet. I'd like to think not, but I also can't ignore stuff like this and the havoc it creates for the clubs, the fans and all those college students we're trying to do this for.”