Farm Aid Debut for Kenny

It's great to see Kenny not thinking too much about the Renee thing and focus his attention on something positive like Farm Aid. Keep up the great work Kenny!

Source: CMT.com

TINLEY PARK, Ill. -- Back when the original Farm Aid was just getting started, Kenny Chesney was only a teenager. But Sunday (Sept. 18) at the 20th anniversary concert in the Chicago suburb of Tinley Park, Ill., Chesney was all grown up and showing all 25,000 fans he was just fine. And to the fans close enough to hold up their "We Love You, Kenny" signs, he mouthed a very genuine, "Thank you."

As expected, Chesney made no mention of the annulment of his marriage to actress Renee Zellweger, a story that made national news last week. However, he would not allow news photographers to take photos during his performance.

Chesney's set was packed with sure things, like "Live Those Songs," "Big Star," "Young" and "Anything but Mine." He dedicated "Back Where I Come From" to everybody in the audience that had grown up in the country. "I understand the importance of keeping people close to the soil, growing up like I did," Chesney said. "When you're from a small town, you've got to band together. That's why I'm so proud to be here."

Chesney even thanked his friend, Farm Aid co-founder John Mellencamp, for inspiring him. "Years ago, Mellencamp told me I oughta write more of my own songs," Chesney said. "He inspired me, and I wrote this song the very next day." The lyrics of "I Go Back" gained a new meaning after Chesney explained what gave him the push to write about Jack & Diane -- years after Mellencamp himself did so.

Fans got even louder when Chesney closed his part of the Farm Aid show with "She Thinks My Tractor's Sexy." How else would you end the concert meant to help the family farms that actually use a John Deere?

This may have been Chesney's first Farm Aid, but Mellencamp has been in it for the long haul, having co-founded the nonprofit organization in 1985 with Willie Nelson and Neil Young. So when it was Mellencamp's turn to sing, he sang his message loud and clear. He was as outspoken as ever with songs about fighting authority, life and death in a small town and discrimination of all kinds. But nothing could've hit closer to home for the family farmers scattered throughout the crowd than Mellencamp's "Rain on the Scarecrow." The crowd was almost silent as he sang, "The crops we grew last summer/Weren't enough to pay the loans/Couldn't buy the seed to plant this spring/And the farmers' bank foreclosed."