Eric Church (December 6, 2012)

Headliner: Eric Church

Opener: Kip Moore & Justin Moore

Date: December 6, 2012

Venue: Verizon Arena (North Little Rock, Ark.)

Eric Church blew the doors clean off Verizon Arena in North Little Rock on Thursday night, Dec. 6 with his Blood, Sweat and Beers tour proving that at the current moment he’s at the top of the game when it comes to the country music genre.

Church told the audience toward the very beginning of his set that he’d give every ounce of everything he had that night as long as the audience repaid the favor. They did and he held true to his word leaving everything out on the stage.

Church kicked his set off with a fitting performance of “Country Music Jesus” from his Country Music Association Album of the Year Chief. Church is one of the few country artists out there today effectively serving as a potential savior of real and true country music.

By the end of his set Church would have played all 11 tracks from the critically-acclaimed and fan-favorite album, the third studio album of his career.

Among Church’s biggest hits of the night were “Homeboy” and “Drink in My Hand,” the first two singles off Chief, as well as “Guys Like Me,” “How ‘Bout You” and “Hell on the Heart” from previous albums. His current radio single “Creepin’” also proved to be one of the many highlights of the night.

In my opinion, the best performances of the show were when Church slowed things down quite a bit, gave his immensely talented band a breather and just played “Sinners Like Me” and “Love Your Love the Most” (two of my three favorite Church songs) back-to-back just him and his guitar. Church also gave an emotional and very moving performance of “Like Jesus Does,” which includes one of the all-time great country music opening lines in, “I’m a long gone Waylon song on vinyl.”

After “Homeboy” finished up Church’s regular set, he quickly returned to the stage for a powerful encore that included a rip-roaring performance of “Smoke a Little Smoke,” with great accompaniment from a smoke machine that filled the entire arena in a haze. Church then somewhat surprised the audience with a terrific performance of “These Boots,” from his 2006 debut album Sinners Like Me, that had all the boot wearers in the audience taking off one of their boots and hoisting them high in the air.

Church saved his finest performance of the night for his very last when he performed one of the crowd favorites “Springsteen,” a song that was nominated for two Grammy Awards the night before. You can tell that “Springsteen” is a very dear song to Church and he dedicated it to the entire audience saying that he hopes when they hear the song years down the road that they’ll remember that very night. With Bruce Springsteen being my all-time favorite artist and Church adapting an incredible verse of Springsteen’s classic “Born to Run” into the song mid-performance it makes for one of those all-time incredible concert moments for me personally and will be something I assuredly will remember for years to come.  

Opening the night for Church was the up-and-coming Kip Moore who appears as if he could become the real deal in a time where there aren’t too many of those in country music. Kip Moore already has had two great songs this year with the uniquely written “Somethin’ ‘Bout a Truck,” one of the better country songs of 2012, and the just plain fun “Beer Money.” Following Kip Moore was the Arkansas native Justin Moore (no relation) with a set that proved to be pleasing for the local audience, but was merely stereotypical and almost laugh inducingly bad for me, especially when he is singing songs about kicking people’s asses when he’s a little twerp-looking man wearing a cowboy hat about two sizes too big.