A concert at Lambeau

When I heard country artist Kenny Chesney was coming to play Lambeau Field about 6 months ago, I really wanted to go.  Tickets were very hard to get (and very expensive) so, not surprisingly, they sold out right away after they went on sale.  Randomly, I was online about a month ago looking for something else and came across tickets for sale from Ticketmaster.  Despite the cost, I decided to splurge for it since concerts at Lambeau Field are pretty rare.  I can see why now!

We drove to our "usual" (free) parking spot in a nearby neighborhood and walked the rest of the way to Lambeau.  The weather report was not looking good for the afternoon and evening, so we brought out rain jackets.  It never rained.

We entered the stadium at about 4:30 and the first performance had already started by the time we sat down, so that was a bit confusing since it wasn't supposed to start until 5 PM.  Between the 3 opening acts (for the country music fans out there- Brantley Gilbert, Cole Swindell, and Old Dominion) plus Jason Aldean as the other headliner and all the set changes in between, the concert ended up lasting well over 6 hours.  People were stumbling into the stadium after tailgating beforehand, and a lot of them just got rowdier and rowdier as the concert progressed and they continued to drink (how do they afford more than one $8-10 Lambeau beer?).  By the time it got dark and Kenny came on at almost 9:20, everyone was pretty fired up!  The crowd stood the entire time for both Jason Aldean and Kenny Chesney, so the folks that rented the padded seats were out of luck (Lambeau only has bleachers without backs).

The weather worked out in our favor and there were only a few minor annoyances from the rowdy fans around us.  The Green Bay Press Gazette reported that more people were ejected from the stadium and arrested during the concert than during a regular Packers game (read the article here).  The police and medics had a very busy night, and the stage equipment wrecked the field yet again, just as it did when Kenny last played here in 2011.

Good thing we went to a concert at Lambeau just in case it never happens again!  It was a long night, but a great experience.

 

About 53,000 packing the stands (including those dedicated? folks on the floor that stood the entire time!)

 Jason Aldean fired up the crowd for an hour and a half (and then came back out with Kenny at the end)

Kenny finally came on after dark- cell phones nowadays instead of lighters