KENNY CHESNEY'S POISON SURPRISE

Kenny Chesney's influences run the gamut from Randy Travis and Keith Whitley to 80's heavy metal hair bands like Warrant and Poison, so imagine Kenny's surprise when the lead singer of Poison, Brett Michaels, came backstage to say hi at Kenny's Syracuse show.

"There's the guy from all those videos from back when I was about the age of a lot of my fans today," says Kenny. "You can't help but remember how you felt back then and what that means today. It's heavy."

And it got even heavier -- Brett had the night off, so he and Kenny decided to give the fans a treat by performing an unplugged rendition of Poison's "Every Rose Has Its Thorn."

"I told Brett how much that song did for me when I was a teenager, and he laughed," said Kenny. "It was so cool, to look over there and see him. It was another one of those 'is this really happening to me?' moments."

• August 26, 2002

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