Kenny Chesney’s set started a bit late at about 9:40 p.m., but for the next hour and 40 minutes, he kept the crowd on their feet.

When the first lines for the video of “Key in the Conch Shell” began playing, the crowd of about 60,000 (or so) was waiting for the muscle-shirt clothed singer.

That was just a video commercial for the Sun City Carnival Tour Chesney is doing this summer.

The crowd only had to wait a few minutes before Chesney bounded onto the stage and began the 20 song set with “Live Those Songs,” a tribute to the music Chesney, and many in the audience, grew up to.

He ramped up the energy with the bouncy “She Thinks My Tractor’s Sexy,” which brought screams from the women in the audience. It was obvious, they thought the singer was sexier.

Throughout the set, Chesney worked the stage and his audience expertly. As a contemporary country artist, Chesney blends other elements seamlessly into his music.

With a home on a Caribbean Island, Chesney has picked up reggae back beats for songs like “No Shoes, No Shirt, No Problem,” that he used to remind the audience that they didn’t have to think about solving their problems on Sunday night and “When the Sun Goes Down,” when life gets hotter at night than during daylight hours.

The set included a number of good-times tunes like “Keg in the Closet,” a reminiscence of college dorm life and “Beer in Mexico,” a song about trying to forget a broken romance, strangely with a nice up-beat tune.

He cooled things down a bit a couple of times in the set, early on with “I Go Back” and “Back Where I Come From,” about his own hometown roots.

Chesney’s back-up band kept pace nicely with the singer, providing hot licks on tunes like “Everybody Wants to Go to Heaven” and easing back on the ballads.

Chesney repeatedly acknowledged the audience, thanking them for their support of his career.

About half way through, some in the audience began leaving the polo grounds early to beat the throngs on the long walk back to the parking lots.

Chesney ended the set with a cover of John Mellencamp’s “Ballad of Jack and Diane,” with the audience singing along.