Eric Church partnered up with Brothers Osborne and Dwight Yoakam for a nearly sold out concert Tuesday night at Target Center. Brothers Osborne were first on stage welcoming the guests as the flooded the 19,000+ seat arena. eventually handing over the stage to country veteran Dwight Yoakam, but only after closing with their number one hit, Rum. Dwight Yoakam was next to take the center stage, unfortunately the stadium’s equipment was set up for Church’s low and almost grungy form of country, not Yoakam’s higher pitched 90s style that was putting a lot of strain on the speakers that were constantly squealing and ringing during his performance. About 45 minutes after the doors opened, Yoakam left the stage, which began the abnormally long breakdown of the set and preparation period for Church. “These guys are really slow” noted fellow concert attendee Kristi Argyilan as the clock creeped past 9pm, the scheduled time for Church’s start. The crew seemed to be relatively new and almost Stuge like as one kid, recognizable by a Mickey Mouse wizard hat nearly drove a rolling cart off of the ramp and onto the guests in the nosebleed section.

At exactly 17 minutes past 9 the lights in the stadium dimmed and the stage started to glow in a swamp gas green as it lit up the smoke bellowing out of the smoke machines as well as from the hippies in the pit in front of the stage. The band started to warm up as Mr Church himself walked on stage followed by his possy of 4 base players and backup guitars. Church opened with his number one The Outsiders, the namesake for his newest album and tour and a sort of a social outsider’s anthem. The drummer eventually came into view being lowered from the scaffolding above the stage. The crowd went wild as everyone lifted up their Dixie cups half full of watered down beer and started singing along and spilling their cup’s contents all over the people in front of them.

Church continued to play more of his more popular songs, some older, but most from his newest album The Outsiders such as Cold One, Talladega, and Give Me Back My Home Town. There was one point in the concert where a special guest was asked to make a suggestion for what the band should play.  She picked the controversial song Two Pink Lines which depicts a young, unmarried couple as they are waiting for a pregnancy test to show if the boy friend had accidentally gotten his girlfriend pregnant. The crowd seemed to get really into it with no regards to the story of the song which shows how devoted the crowd was to Church’s music.

One thing that stood out throughout his concert was his references to smoking marijuana, or the absence of them. A few of church’s songs such as Smoke a little Smoke and I’m Getting Stoned have some references to smoking the drug but at the concert Church seemed a little nervous while singing those lines, such as in I’m Getting Stoned which is a song about a man who is trying to deal with either his ex girlfriend or lover getting married to someone else. The lines depict the situation the man is going through “… the cans are on the limo and the rice is on the ground, they’re heading for the islands, but i’m already gone, she got a rock (diamond ring) and i’m getting stoned…” usually in the country world when the word “stoned” is used its used as a synonym for drunk, so being ‘stoned’ in country terms is drunk but Church has but a new meaning to the word. However when the song was performed he trailed off right before saying it as if he was avoiding saying it, and this happened every time the word came up in the song, and with any other drug reference throughout the concert. There are a few possible reasons why this might be, either he has stopped smoking and does not wish to promote the illegal and potentially harmful act or he is being told to not endorse it.

The tour is set to play in Nebraska on wednesday the 18th and then to Austin Texas on the 23rd. The next time Church will be performing a reasonable distance away will be on October 8th when he performs in Madison Wisconsin, the trip will be well worth it to see Church’s performance, it’s a concert for the ages.