Jason Aldean rocks sold-out show to benefit the Children’s Hospital in Macon

Five women, all wearing western style cowboy boots, drove more than 100 miles Friday to get to Macon.

It was a special night they’d been planning for half a year.

“We’re hear to see Jason Aldean,” Mallory Jenkins said while standing in a group outside the Macon Coliseum.

“And we got our boots on,” her friend told a Telegraph reporter. “Because we’re country.”

The women, from Claxton, love Aldean’s country music and “them tight jeans, his earrings and everything,” one of them said.

Thousands tailgated for hours in the parking lot before the 7:30 p.m. sold-out show.

Macon’s Maggie Renfroe, a recent finalist on NBC’s “The Voice,” and Trey Teem band, of Forsyth, opened for Aldean, who took the stage about 9:30 p.m.

The 40-year-old country music singer opened his second “Concert For The Kids” with “They Don’t Know,” the title track of his latest album released in September 2016.

All proceeds from the concert will be used to help pay for the new Children’s Hospital, which is under construction on Pine Street by the Medical Center, Navicent Health. The hospital is set to open in 2019.

Attendees were invited to text a phone number to donate to the cause and enter to win a guitar signed by Aldean.

Last year’s benefit concert took place at the Grand Opera House and a half million dollars was raised for the cause.

“I think it’s going to be something special,” Aldean, who has two children and a third on the way, said earlier Friday. “To me, there’s nothing more precious than the kids.”

The concert took place several hours after a ceremony at the hospital in which a sign for “Jason Aldean Way” was unveiled.

The dedication covers a section of Pine Street close to where the Children’s Hospital is being built.

Aldean, whose wife accompanied him for the unveiling, said the dedication was “a huge honor.”

Florida cities are the next few stops for Aldean’s band is set to make as it continues on the “They Don’t Know” tour.

Aldean grew up off Hartley Bridge Road in Macon. He graduated from Windsor Academy in 1995 and left Macon 19 years ago for Nashville, Tennessee, where he became a country music star.

This story was originally published August 11, 2017 at 11:48 PM with the headline "Jason Aldean rocks sold-out show to benefit the Children’s Hospital in Macon."