Country star delivers special effects, Southern anthems on arena tour
He rose through the bottom of the dark stage as smoke billowed around the mic stand and the crowd fawned over the country music chief. The song: “Country Music Jesus.”
Eric Church — whose junior record “Chief” won album of the year at the Country Music Awards last month — commanded Colonial Life Arena’s stage Friday night in his “Blood Sweat and Beers Tour” stop.
It was a country affair — like an outdoor field show, amped up with show lights and smoke machines. The crowd wore plaid. Girls and guys added cowboy boots and camo baseball caps to button-up shirts and blue jeans. They linked arms, slow danced and started more than one “Game-Cocks” cheer as they sloshed and spilled $8 cups of beer and screamed lyrics about rednecks, Johnny Cash and Jack Daniels.
The tour’s opening acts, Kip Moore and Justin Moore, set the Southern stage — Kip from Georgia and Justin from Arkansas.
Kip, clad in a black v-neck and backwards red baseball cap, sat at the front of the stage and sang “Hey Pretty Girl” to the first few rows. The lights rose and Kip closed with the song that’s made his career: “Somethin’ ‘bout a Truck.” He ran around the floor of the arena, throwing high-fives and handshakes to the drunk and smitten fans.
Justin Moore’s stage set spoke to his popularity. A garnet Gamecock was the backsplash to his name, with the two “o’s” in “Moore” carved out as the barrel of a rifle. The tag “NRA Country” also sat at the top left corner of the backing.
In his cowboy hat and oversized belt buckle, Justin had the crowd from the start. Everyone was out of their seats, belting out every word of his set — up in enthusiasm from Kip’s already winning performance.
Justin said he was “singing to all the good looking women in plaid and cowboy boots” before “Til My Last Day” and continued with a set that balanced between the sadder, sweeter side of country and salutes to the South.
He asked everyone to light up their cell phones for “If Heaven Wasn’t So Far Away,” so his grandpa could see all the way from heaven, as per his request the pitch-black arena twinkled from the front row to the cheap seats. The night carved out a little piece of the South, and placed it in the heart of the arena. Justin closed his performance, and set the stage for Church, with “Small Town USA,” a choice that spoke to the feeling of the whole night in the best way.
Church, with “Country Music Jesus,” pumped in the theatrics. It was clear his set was going to live up to all grand expectations — and, perhaps, fly far beyond.
Flames shot up from around the stage when Church sang “there’ll be fire on a mountain” as he, his two guitarists and bassist stood atop shining platforms at stage front.
“I’ll give you every one of what I have if you give it all right back,” he shouted.
His backdrop, an outline of his “Chief” aviator portrait, ripped away to expose an American flag during “Pledge Allegiance to the Hag.” Guys in the audience waved their camo visors in the air as he sang on, “an’ tip your hats, an’ raise your glasses of cold, cold beer.”
The arena broke into a “U-S-C” chant before the Granite Falls, N.C. native sang the title song off his sophomore album, “Carolina.” It’s a Church classic, and a slower song. Some sat and ripped pieces of pink and blue cotton candy from plastic bags — the sole concession peddled seat-side — as others echoed Church’s drawn-out “home,” with several “ooh’s” in “Carolina, you keep callin’ me home.”
Church’s mic stand had one very important feature: a cup holder for his red Solo cup. It sat in a loop mid-way down the metal rod, never far from the frontman’s reach. He said he has Jack Daniels whiskey in his cup every night, as he stood in front of the new stage backdrop — a bottle of Jack labeled “Hell Raisin’.”
“There have been many nights when this cup has gotten me in trouble, and many nights when this cup has saved my ass,” he said, before his own song titled “Jack Daniels.”
It was about a dozen tracks into the set before Church gave the crowd a radio hit. A storm started brewing on the sound system, crickets started chirping, louder and louder, before clouds started scanning over bright green laser beams. It was “Creepin’.”
Church’s band left the stage for a short stretch of the show. He sat in the dark, with a single spotlight and his guitar. He sang an unrecorded song, “I’m Just Sayin’,” and “Love Your Love the Most,” before bringing back the band for “Drink In My Hand” — a performance that included rattling sounds of gun shots for: “My head Monday morning when that alarm clock sings / It goes bang, bang, bang, while it ring, ring, ring.”
Church set up a three-song encore: “Smoke A Little Smoke,” “These Boots” and “Springsteen.”
Everyone held their cowboy boots in their hands, above the blue-lit crowd for the second, as restless fans chanted for one special song as the music faded low.
“Springsteen! Springsteen! Springsteen!”
He started at the piano, singing out the chorus on the dark stage. He stopped midway through the song to “connect the melody and memory” with a few verses of Bruce Springsteen’s “Born to Run.”
He got existential, or sentimental, for a moment — he wanted the audience to connect that night, where they were and who they were with, to the melody and memory. It was, he said:
“Like a soundtrack to a November Friday night.”