Kenny Chesney remembers that windy May night at Old Tucson Studios, looking out into the crowd of 3,000 filling the dirt yard.
It was 1999 and his career was a series of opening acts for superstars and shows at venues like Old Tucson.
"It really doesn't seem like it's been that long ago since I played Old Tucson," Chesney said during a phone interview last Friday morning. "I really liked playing that place."
That was his last Tucson show.
His 1999 album "Everywhere We Go," which came out a few months after that show, elevated him from George Strait's and Tim McGraw's opening act to arena headliner.
Today, the Tennessee native has eclipsed both artists when it comes to drawing a crowd.
In fact, aside from reunited Brit-rockers The Police, no one drew a bigger audience than Chesney last year. Not even U2 or Madonna. Billboard reported that Chesney's 2007 tour was the biggest for country music, selling more than 1.1 million tickets and grossing more than $71 million.
Is he shocked?
As a matter of fact, yes,
"(The other acts) play worldwide. I don't. That's all been done in the United States," he said from his tour bus, parked outside Cleveland Browns Stadium for one of his 14 stadium shows this summer. "The fact that we're up there in the same sentence (with U2 and Madonna) is mind-blowing.
"I remember being in a Laundromat in college doing our laundry. And we were talking about wouldn't it be great if we could get one song on the radio and all of us go out on a tour bus, just for one summer, and have a great time, just experience it," he recalled, then laughed: "This is our 16th summer."
Chesney, 40, built his career one song, one show at a time since the early 1990s. Success came in fits and spurts until his fifth album, "Everywhere We Go," which set his fast-track in motion.
It also launched him on a record-setting streak of 24 Top 10 Billboard country hits since 2000 ā the longest Top 10 streak of any artist. His latest single, the ballad "Better as a Memory" off his eight-month-old CD "Just Who I Am: Poets & Pirates," broke into the country Top 10 two weeks ago.
"I'm really proud of my career, and we did it with a lot of hard work and having a lot of fun," he said, then chuckled when told that he has become the example other artists follow.
"I would love to go out and tour with him and see his operation," said friend and vocal partner Tracy Lawrence. "It's unbelievable how big his career has gotten."
"When I hear that, it's really flattering and it really makes me feel great," said Chesney. "But when other artists say that, they have to understand that they have to sacrifice their whole life. Somebody said to me, 'I think it's great that you set aside a part of your life to give to your music.' You got it all wrong; this is my life."
His sacrifices have included less time with his family and personal relationships, including a short-lived marriage to actress RenƩe Zellweger that made tabloid headlines two years ago.
"I work all the time; I'm gone all the time. I know I'm sacrificing relationships and I'm sacrificing being really close to my family," he said.
"But the good times definitely outweigh the tough times out here. I woke up this morning and I looked up and my bus is parked in front of the Cleveland Browns football stadium, for God's sake."
Chesney's caravan of 50 semis pulls into Glendale this weekend for Saturday's University of Phoenix Stadium tour stop. Country superstars Keith Urban, Gary Allan and LeAnn Rimes open the show.
The lineup also includes rocker Sammy Hagar
"Sammy Hagar is opening for me. Think about that," Chesney said. "I remember being in my car going to high school listening to 'I Can't Drive 55' as loud as I could possibly get it."
Chesney is on the road through September. After that, he'll return to his boat somewhere in the Bahamas and watch the sun move across the sky to the soundtrack of Bob Marley. After a month or so, he will probably pull his guitar out of the closet.
"I'll start messing around. The next thing you know, I'm a verse and a chorus into the next song. That's how it usually works. By the end of November, we're already preparing to go through the next summer," he said.
