Here’s a bit of recent song history for you: Who is the first of a music act to solo headline Nissan Stadium in Nashville? And additionally, set the attendance record?
That might be Eric Church, who do this unprecedented feat on Saturday (May 25), website hosting his Double Down Tour in Music City without a co-headliner or even an aid act at the 60,000 capability venue. (File that away on your Jeopardy look one day).
According to Pollstar, Church has been “grossing between $2 million to $three million consistent with -night time area stand throughout the usa on his Double Down Tour.” Fans possibly since they get their money’s well worth, as Church typically plays a remarkable 3 hours per display. Nashville’s 37-music, three-hour-plus set (that ended close to 1 AM) turned into no exception.
“If I die up here, I’m gonna die up right here,” Church stated from the stage. “I’m gonna provide you with all I got.”
The usa star opened his first of two sets with 2018’s “Drowning Man” before burning through “Country Music Jesus,” “That’s Damn Rock & Roll,” “Creepin’,” and “Over When It’s Over” for his first five songs. His backup singer, Joanna Cotten, changed into featured early and regularly during the night time—her powerful backing vocals a vital piece of Church’s onstage sound.
Church and his band have been backed by using 3 big onstage video displays and a 3-pronged catwalk (reminiscent of the head of a pitchfork), expanding Church’s attain from stage to almost the 50-backyard-line in some spots. It’s built for higher crowd interplay, which Church took advantage of: strutting the catwalk, signing autographs, giving excessive-fives, and blending into the on-subject audience for sure songs.
Still wearing the aviator sunglasses that branded his appearance since 2011’s breakout album Chief, Church regarded comfy onstage. “I came here 15 years in the past, and I had dreams,” he stated. “But I’m no longer positive I may want to dream this huge. This night time’s a special night time for me.”
Church’s Hard and Soft Edge
Though the terrible-assery of his logo stems from songs which include “Drink in My Hand,” “The Outsiders,” and “Smoke A Little Smoke,” Church has a deep catalog of slow to mid-tempo songs (e.G. “Mixed Drinks About Feelings,” “Like A Wrecking Ball”) that strike similarly as hard, but in a much exclusive manner. It’s the kind of live performance wherein you may see lovers smiling and crying simultaneously.
Of route, beer-drinking anthems which include “Drink in My Hand’ (which Church performed three songs into his 2nd set) elicit the response you’d anticipate from a Saturday night Nashville crowd—however, what’s wonderful approximately Church’s legion of lovers, dubbed the “Church Choir,” is they didn’t simply hearth up their voices for the 17 radio singles he carried out.
The crowd sings along to deep cuts from a 2006 album? What happens at an Eric Church show. They recognize his song catalog, no longer simply the hits.
Double Down, Double Set
Church skillfully units up his marathon display into sets, a craft he started out dabbling with on his Outsiders World Tour in 2014. However, the sets, in a sense, function separately suggests. Set one wasn’t just a warmup for set two; it became an entire display with 8 radio singles (“Record Year,” “Mr. Misunderstood,” “Cold One,” “Talladega,” “How ’Bout You,” “Creepin’,” “Desperate Man,” “Homeboy”) and a mashup finisher that covered a hybrid of Queen, Def Leppard, Bob Seger, Neil Diamond, Travis Tritt, Billy Joel, Joan Jett and Church’s “Mistress Named Music.”
Set covered 9 radio singles (“The Outsiders,” “Drink In My Hand,” “Round Here Buzz,” “Kill A Word,” “Some Of It,” “Like A Wrecking Ball,” “Give Me Back My Hometown,” “Smoke A Little Smoke,” “Springsteen”) and a 3-music encore that sandwiched Church’s highest streamed track “Springsteen” (167 million Spotify plays) in among “Those I’ve Loved” and a combo of Jackson Browne’s “The Load-Out” and “Stay.”
It became at some stage in “Springsteen” that Church gave his closing, lengthy, heartfelt thanks to the file-breaking crowd of fifty-six,521. “I had no idea that this will occur, so I thanks [from the] backside of my coronary heart,” Church stated. “I thanks Nashville, I thank the Church Choir from all over the usa. I thank you for your passion. I thank you for believing in song in an international in which it gets type of disposable with a variety of the opposite shit that’s occurring. It’s nonetheless about the tune, much like it’s continually been. And that’s what that is, so the bottom of my coronary heart, thank you for this night.”
