I Saw The Chief, Eric Church, For The First Time Friday Night At United Center And He Was As Advertised: Fucking Awesome
I really can't put into words how amazing the Eric Church show at United Center was on Friday night.
I've heard for years now how epic Church shows are.
No opener. 3 hour sets. Always switched up set lists. Amazing covers.
It basically sounded like the closest thing to a Springsteen show I’d heard of. And after attending, I can confirm it was.
Eric Church has a special relationship with Chicago. Thanks to Ed Warm and Joe’s on Weed St.
Ed was one of the first people to realize Church’s potential and first people to book him. He played Joe’s a lot coming up and actually shouted Ed and the bar out twice during the show on Friday.
My friend Augie, the biggest Church fan I know, since day, was there, in the pit with us, and has probably seen Church 40 times. He’s been to every Joe’s show and knew all his tricks so it was great having him next to us to let us know when we could make a bathroom and beer run and what was coming up.
(Sidebar- here’s an amazing Church story from Augie-
Ascend Amphitheater in downtown Nashville opened July 30, 2015 and he performed the first two concerts there on the 30th and 31st. Capacity is 6800.
Julie and I drove down from Chicago and talked about how he rarely plays Lightning. We had quite a few soda pops in the pit, and for the second half of the inaugural show, we kept yelling “lightning” in-between songs. Of course, to no avail that night.
The next night, we weren’t in the pit. The show is coming to a close but there was one more song. Before playing the song, he was referencing our extended, alcohol-fueled request, and then said something along the lines of “if you’re out there tonight, this one’s for you” and fires up Lightning.
It’s a dark song and on the last note, everything goes black and they walk off. That was the end of the show. It sent chills.)
Church hit the stage right around 9pm.
It was a square stage in the center of the floor that he rotated clockwise on every song giving each side of the venue a front row seat for a quarter of the show.
As you can see in the video above, he came out to Sirius by The Alan Parsons Project (aka the Bulls theme) and the place lost it.
From there on out it was 180 minutes of electricity.
As I mentioned, Joe’s got a couple shout outs along with Church telling stories about him playing there for half full crowds the first few times, but Ed believing in him and continuing to book him. Pretty awesome stuff that could be said by numerous big time country musicians. Ed is the fucking man and has one of the best ears for talent of anybody I’ve ever met.
He also mentioned the time he made a Joe’s a stop when he played free shows in 3 cities in one night.
He crafted a very a unique setlist for this show. Thanks to Angie I knew it was in chronological order through his discography… something he’s never before.
He also only played 3 songs from his newest triple album release.
The highlight for me, a big Springsteen fan was seeing him play “I’m On Fire” and then transition into “Springsteen”.
(I’ve been looking everywhere online for video of this but can’t find. If anybody has please send!)
Setlist:
Another thing worth mentioning is Joanna Cotten, his backup singer.
Holy shit man.
Her voice and her energy were unreal. She’s become an integral part of the band, the fans love her, and she signs autographs DURING the show while singing. Something I’ve never seen done before.
She blew the roof off the UC on “Chattanooga Lucy” and “That’s Damn Rock & Role”.
What a great freaking night and show. It feels SO GOOD to have full show live music back.