After a hugely popular show there last year, Kenny Chesney is returning to the Boston area and New England Patriots' Gillette Stadium on July 16. And he's bringing Gretchen Wilson back with him -- as well as Dierks Bentley, Big & Rich and Carrie Underwood.

More stadium shows are expected to be announced shortly in Nashville, Seattle, Detroit, Tampa, Dallas, Chicago, Columbus and Los Angeles.

"We can overthink this stuff, be sure we've got the demand met, and then we keep finding we're scrambling," Chesney says. "My whole attitude has always been the more, the merrier -- and if you want to come be part of the fun and the music, then come on. It's why we try to keep the tickets affordable, why we do as many dates as we do. Once we put our tickets up on sale for the first several dates -- and saw how fast some of the markets were going clean -- we realized we might need to rethink some of the second leg."

Chesney launches The Road and the Radio Tour 2006 with shows March 23-24 in Dayton, Ohio. Bentley and Sugarland will open the dates scheduled through July 4. Chesney's hit "Living in Fast Forward" climbed to No. 1 on Billboard's country airplay chart this week.

"I never thought we'd get to the place where we'd have 19 semis, so thinking about five National Football League football stadiums and four Major League Soccer stadiums is beyond me," he says. "I mean, I'm the kind who worked his butt off to make the football team at Gibbs High School [in Tennessee], so the idea that I'm playing in these places, walking the same halls and hanging in the same locker rooms as these major athletes is its own crazy reality."