The New Country Church of Tyler Childers

There’s a peculiar dance that every country musician has to do when they start getting big. Pop stars can draw audiences in with elaborate personas. Rock stars and rappers can lean into an aloof sense of cool. But country artists, even as they skyrocket, have to convince you that they’re everyday people — so many million-dollar boys and girls next door.

Tyler Childers does these steps with a shit-eating grin on his face, as if to ask his audience, “Isn’t this nuts?” Unlike the genre’s other big names, his joy isn’t happy-go-lucky, and his mythology, especially on his latest album Snipe Hunter, has nothing to do with chance. Instead, it has everything to do with want — how desperate he was to make it, and how hard he’s worked to have the success he now enjoys.

At night two of Childers’ weekend residency at Geodis Park on Saturday, the first act was rising country-punk star and onetime Nashvillian Cory Branan. Childers recently joined him in the studio on a duet version of Branan’s tradition-bucking “Steppin’ Outside.” Then prolific Texas country songsmith Charley Crockett came onstage, showing off laid-back honky-tonk grooves like “Easy Money” and cool commentaries in “Ain’t That Right?” and “Killers of the Flower Moon.” 

“Is it country, is it blues?” Crockett asked, introducing a roaring cover of Link Wray’s “Jukebox Mama.” “I’ll let you decide.” He also recalled his first time meeting Childers, who he called his “brother”: “He had a wild-eyed look when we shook hands, and I knew he was going to be a star.” 

When Crockett’s set ended, the screens flanking the stage displayed classic-style film title cards for Tyler Childers’ On the Road. That’s the name of Childers’ tour as well as a reference to Kerouac’s novel, which is the first title in his new Libby library partnership, the Hickman Holler Reading Club. A countrified remix of Chappell Roan’s “Red Wine Supernova” played over the speakers, while on the main stage a Bhagavad Gita tapestry was draped over the synth that would soon be played by Matt Rowland — an MVP Nashville player and a member of Childers’ band The Food Stamps — and black-and-white footage starring Childers as a gunslinger played on the screens.

Childers’ marathon set began with those screens turning Technicolor à la The Wizard of Oz and a performance of Snipe Hunter’s hustle-culture flex “Eatin’ Big Time.” “Feels like we were here only yesterday,” Childers quipped. “I wonder why that is.” At his recent Turkey and the Wolf pop-up in July, he mostly stuck to playing the new record, but at Geodis he wove in some classics — including, yes, the long-unreleased fan favorite “Jersey Giant.” “This song is on TikTok or somethin’,” he explained by way of introduction, to thunderous applause.

Childers whips up an audience with nothing short of glee. The zeal he brings to his shows is a bit like a cross between a fire-and-brimstone preacher and a kid at a candy store. Before “Bitin’ List,” he vented about awkward fan interactions at Kroger, eyes bulging, then declared that “hate is a thing that can poison your veins.” After “Rustin’ in the Rain,” he teased about how “randy” the song was, later telling the audience, “My mama wouldn’t let me listen to Tyler Childers.” As he introduced The Food Stamps, he turned sports announcer, calling Pittsburgher bassist Craig Burletic “The Man of Steel” and pedal steel player James Barker “Bloodbath.”

He’s equally skilled at mellowing out when the occasion calls for it, though. For “Lady May,” Childers came out onto the B-stage and played alone under a single spotlight, where guitarist CJ Cain and fiddler Jesse Wells (not to be confused with singer-songwriter Jesse Welles) later joined him. Childers joked about being shot out of a cannon and band members “flying in on big old horses.” But this was a quieter kind of triumph — a gentler way to hold the stage, though no less compelling. During “Follow You to Virgie,” as he insisted “I can see her up in glory,” it was hard to imagine anyone wanting to do anything but believe him.

Tyler Childers seems to have this effect on people, guiding them into an almost religious fervor that’s fitting for an artist who started his career as a child in a church choir. He doesn’t do encores; instead, he took a break during the set while the band riffed off of “This Little Light of Mine,” then returned to lead the bluegrass standard “Old Country Church.” His notion of transcendence is expansive and unifying. During “In Your Love,” whose music video written by Silas House is commonly accepted as being the first one on a major country label to feature a gay romance and kiss, I turned around to see a queer couple a few rows behind me in the floor seats. They were clinging to each other, eyes shut, singing along. 

Between these songs of worship, as the night wound down, Childers preached fellowship. His meditation ode “Universal Sound” rang out with a synthy heartland-rock sound as dreamy stagecraft cast him in multicolor auras. Closer “Heart You’ve Been Tendin’” rocked harder — so hard, in fact, that a good half of the band wound up on the floor during its epic, Pink Floyd-style outro. Cain and Burletic thrashed from the ground while Rod Elkins, still upright, kept pummeling time on the drums.

Childers, however, turned reflective. Just as the song was about to end, the camera caught him lying motionless on his back and lingered there, his own gaze intent on somewhere far off. I thought of something he’d said earlier, just before “Way of the Triune God”: “We are now one great big organism that won’t ever be this thing again.” And we were.

Nashville Cream

Tyler Childers Plays Surprise Show at Turkey and the Wolf

• Annie Parnell

The Spin

Odesza, Lil Nas X, Jenny Lewis and More Connect Old and New at Bonnaroo

• Kelsey Beyeler, Kahwit Tela, Stephen Trageser, Cole Villena

Cover Stories

Tyler Childers on Storytelling, Touring, and Country and Americana Music

• Brittney McKenna