Eric Church
"You guys need to take a break? You good?" Eric Church jokingly asked the crowd after abruptly halting a performance of his heartland country anthem “Give Me Back My Hometown” while baptizing Nashville’s new Ascend Amphitheater last night. It was one of many moments during the country superstar’s rare, by-pants-seat (mostly) one-man show that he broke the fourth wall.
On second thought, looking back it’s hard to think of a point in the 90-plus-minute show — the first of a sold-out pair the singer plays this week — when there was a fourth wall. When he belted the line “Kick back and get high,” on “Livin’ Part of Life,” the crowd cheered and he playfully chuckled. When he dedicated the rarely performed “Carolina” to a fan who requested it at an East Nashville pop-up-shop meet-and-greet the singer attended earlier in the day, the crowd really felt it, hollering extra loud for the fan in question (who wasn't there because he had to make the 99-mile drive back to Waynesboro, Tenn., in time to work his nightshift).
When he busted into “These Boots” — a song nodding to the singer’s days grinding it out for tips at one-night roadhouse stands — across the amphitheater fans took off a boot, or a shoe, or a flip-flop and held it up high, just as an attendance-record-setting crowd had at Bridgestone Arena in January, and certainly many Church shows before and since. And when that post-fakeout informal poll at the start of “Hometown” cued floodlights, Church took in the vista of a rapt, 6,800-strong capacity crowd.
But from the up-nostrils-view general admission pit at the front of the stage to the furthest nosebleed perch of the general admission lawn, Church’s devoted parishioners took in a much different view — and we're not just talking about the heavy-handed, ass-kicking product placement of a bar on a stage quite literally outfitted to look like a lounge at the Jack Daniels distillery.
We’ve gotta give it up — Ascend is a pretty bitchin’ spot to take in concert on a balmy summer night. Upon arrival we took a walk around the riverside amphitheater and noticed, whether it’s a view of the stage, the Nashville skyline or the Cumberland, there’s not a bad sightline in the house. In that sense, calling the amphitheater’s lawn nosebleed territory is a bit of a misnomer. Sure, the space is overstuffed with corporate advertising by super-cool sponsors like Journeys. And yes, we did shell out $26 on a Michelob ULTRA tallboy and a Bud Light Straw-Ber-Rita (because when in Brome).
But that kind of ubiquitous corporate takeover is par for the course at any major outdoor amphitheater, save for maybe Red Rocks or The Gorge. It’s also what Church is railing against in “Hometown,” a song about watching your small town lose its identity when its taken over by Pizza Huts and such. With that in mind, we couldn’t help but note the irony of watching Church sing the chorus “give me back my hometown” with the Pinnacle building and other New Nashville high-rises towering in the background, and singing it at the grand opening of a $52 million amphitheater that’s a mansion-on-the-hill example of New Nashville, operated by Live Nation, a company that left old Nashville in the dust less than a decade ago when the concert market got rough.
Eric Church
"This is where I live, this is my hometown,” Church bantered near set’s end. He’s talking about the town he lives in now, Nashville, not Granite Falls, N.C., the Anytown, USA stomping ground he escaped. And under the stars in Nashville, as the weed smoke wafted down from blanket-seated bros and broads passing joints up on the lawn, many longtime residents — condo complainers and dwellers alike — got back something they’ve missed since Starwood closed in 2006.
"This is terrifying, I love it," Church said early on.
It’s somewhat ironic that the first show at this sparkling new expanse wasn’t something with dazzling production to showcase the shed's technical capabilities, or a multi-instrumental rock orchestra to show off bell-clear acoustics, but rather a rough-and-tumble stripped-down affair where an undeniably dynamic performer translated his rousing arena-rock show into a massive campfire sing-along, keeping the crowd crooning on every song from “Cold One” to “Sinners Like Me,” loud enough to be heard down in Talladega. We even heard dudes singing along locker-room style in the restroom, where (no kidding) there was an entire line of pissing dudes at the urinal, each wearing cargo shorts and flip-flops.
Eric Church
As for Church, he did bring out his bandmates one at a time to accompany him on various tunes, with varying results. It was a gloriously disjointed show that evoked even more intimacy in a large venue that already accomplishes the same thing with great acoustics and great ambiance. "After tonight, we're never doing this shit again,” Church said at one point. And though we didn’t take that to mean tonight’s show was cancelled, it was a reminder this was a memorable, one-of-a-kind show at a place we (and every other concertgoer in this town) will inevitably frequent dozens upon dozens of times in the summers to come.
Eric Church
The only real drag about last night — and outdoor shows like this in general — was the 11 p.m. curfew that forced Church to end his show sans encore. (And sans “Springsteen”!) Avid chants of “Eric! Eric! Eric!” turned to angry heckles of “Bullshit! Bullshit! Bullshit!” when some no-name came on stage and said, “Sorry, folks, it’s called a city ordinance.” That was little consolation to the guy we saw wearing the shirt that read, “I drink, I smoke, I go to Eric Fuckin Church.” At least he’s got another shot at redemption tonight.
The ending was as odd as it was abrupt, with Church closing the show with the debut of a new song, “Three Year Old,” a tender-plucked rumination on fatherhood in the heartland, centered around an anecdote about his almost 4-year-old son’s favorite activity: fishing. “A fishing pole sinks faster than a tackle box, I learned that from a three year old,” went the refrain. And with that, The Spin learns something new every day.
Eric Church
