High Energy Galore in Exclusive Trailer for 'Kenny Chesney: Summer in 3D'

Country music may be all abuzz over Taylor Swift this month after she wrestled the coveted Entertainer of the Year award from Kenny Chesney at the Country Music Association Awards. But that doesn't mean Chesney is going away quietly. Quite the opposite.

Chesney, who won the award the previous four consecutive years, is planning on becoming a big-screen presence, as they say, at a theater near you. In April, the Knoxville native will release his first full-length concert film, 'Kenny Chesney: Summer in 3D'.

And by all indications, Chesney has come a long way since he sang about sexy tractors. In this decade alone he has picked up eight CMA and nine Academy of Country Music awards, and at the CMA Awards show he scored points for hipness in dueting with Dave Matthews on "I'm Alive" from his 2008 album, 'Lucky Old Sun.'



Building on that, the trailer for 'Summer in 3D' makes a case for Chesney being the 21^st-century version of Garth Brooks, who revolutionized the country biz in the '90s with a bombastic stage show that owed a lot more to Kiss than to Hank Williams. We see the chiseled Chesney before a stadium full of roaring Kennyphiles, sprinting down a long runway, whirling overhead in what looks like an airborne throne, and at one point standing with outstretched arms in the rain. (Did Ed Harris cue that from the control room, like in 'The Truman Show'? Just asking.)

In short, 'Summer in 3D' chronicles an astounding modern country stage show, with pyrotechnics and athletic feats galore. And the 3D resolution is so clear you can almost tell what gauge strings Chesney and his band are using. But apart from being a hot show, it's also an announcement that, for all his hits about kicking back and popping open a cool one on the beach, Chesney is the Man these days in country music, one of the dwindling few who can fill an arena and make it dance.