It’s been a decade since Tim McGraw and Kenny Chesney shared a bill, but don’t attribute the delay to anything except bad timing.
“We’ve talked about it for years and it finally worked out,” McGraw said. “We knew for a couple of years that we would do stadiums together -- Kenny has been doing them a while -- but we knew this would turn into a whole different thing.”
McGraw was calling from Nashville, where he was taking a break from recording vocals for his new album in his home studio.
Typically laid-back and affable, the country megastar was audibly jazzed about his upcoming summer outing with longtime pal Chesney, a trek that will take over the Georgia Dome on June 3, the second date of a three-month, weekends-only tour.
Chesney, meanwhile, chimed in via email to express his reasons for wanting hit the road with his like-minded comrade.
“It was basically the mentality of, ‘Why not?’” Chesney said. “[Tim] and I are really great friends and I just felt like we’re at a point where a lot of people have not only been listening to our music, but living with our music for a while now. It’s a mentality of giving our fans the best possible show and music that is going to last a while.”
For that show, McGraw will perform first (after openers Jake Owen and Grace Potter & The Nocturnals), then Chesney will run through his set before the duo performs together for the final 30-45 minutes.
The production of the show is, according to McGraw, “big, but pretty simple.”
“We both realized it’s about the music and about having fun and letting the audience get hot and sweaty,” he said. “It’s going to be fun for us to see the audience reaction.”
Chesney, too, uses the crowd response as his primary motivator.
“It's the best feeling in the world when you have thousands of people that are focused on one spot on stage and have so much love directed at one point on stage and it lets you know that the music that you created made a difference. And I see that in their faces,” Chesney said.
Both singers anticipate a busy 2012 post-tour, too.
Chesney’s new album, “Welcome to the Fishbowl,” featuring his hit duet with McGraw, “Feel Like a Rock Star,” bows June 19 and McGraw, long embroiled in a dispute with career label Curb Records, announced May 21 that he’s signed with Big Machine Records, home to Taylor Swift and Rascal Flatts.
He calls his new material, which he’s working on now, “just another progression in what I try to do in my career. There’s a freshness in everything I do these days.”
His equally famous wife, Faith Hill, is also recording a new release.
As with most families -- albeit richer than most -- life in the McGraw-Hill household requires plenty of juggling and compromise. So while McGraw said it’s possible he and Hill will tour together again and that he has a few acting possibilities floating around, it’s again all about the timing.
The couple’s three daughters -- Gracie, 15; Maggie, 13; and Audrey, 10 -- have school and social commitments that don’t always fit into the touring schedules of Mom and Dad.
“It’s challenging because they have their own lives and certainly don’t want to spend their time with us,” McGraw said. “They’ll be in and out for the tour this summer, but Dad is the most uncool person they know!”
Even with his new line of JBL Tim McGraw Artist Series headphones?
McGraw laughs: “My girls think something is cool only as long as it doesn’t have my name on it.”
Rumors have fluttered that McGraw and Hill would be the next superstar country act to bring their talents to Las Vegas for a residency, a la Garth Brooks and Shania Twain. When asked about the veracity of the reports, McGraw chuckles again.
“I’ve heard those rumors, too. It sounds like fun, but I have no time to concentrate on that right now,” he said.
But is it a possibility?
“We’d consider it, sure. They pay a lot of money out there!”
Concert preview
Kenny Chesney and Tim McGraw
With Grace Potter & The Nocturnals and Jake Owen. 4:30 p.m. June 3. $25.50-$254. Georgia Dome, One Georgia Dome Drive N.W., Atlanta. 1-800-745-3000, www.ticketmaster.com.
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