By Adam Lucas

 

ALBANY—Improbable things happen in Albany.

                  

There were 28 songs on the set list Eric Church originally composed for his show at MVP Arena. You can guess some of them. The eight songs from Evangeline vs. The Machine, of course. “Springsteen,” yes.

                  

But you could have listed off dozens of songs likely to make an appearance on that list before you got to “The Hard Way,” a song from Sinners Like Me he’s only played live twice in the last decade and never in the last nine years.

                  

And yet there it was, nestled at the end of the show in a medley with, among others “What I Almost Was,” which Church has played live twice this decade. 

                  

Prior to Saturday night, there had been three Eric Church shows in the last 20 years that had included both those songs: The Boardwalk in Orangevale, Calif., in 2007, the Dusty Armadillo in Rootstown, Ohio, in December of 2006, and the Funky Frog in Mentor-On-The-Lake in July of 2006. 

                  

The Funky Frog has long since closed. The capacity of the Dusty Armadillo is 750 and it’s a pretty safe bet there aren’t too many artists who play there with a four-piece string quartet and horns section, as Church did in Albany.

                  

What made Chief decide to present his fans with an all-time show on Valentine’s Day? There’s no way to know for certain, but probably the same reason he does almost anything else: because he can.

                  

He can put out an IMAX movie and a live album soundtrack the same weekend he plays three packed shows. He entertained the crowd with a story of his parents going to see the film Saturday evening in High Point, N.C. His mom, Rita, had called him just before he took the stage in Albany.

                  

“Your father is walking around shaking hands with everyone and telling them who he is,” she reported. “He’s walking across the rows. He wants to stay for the 9 p.m. showing.”

                  

“Mom, it’s Valentine’s Day,” Church replied. “But I would divorce his ass.”

                  

Then he grinned. The story had no real relevance to the rest of the night other than it reminded you that it was a real person on stage, with proud parents. If you were in an IMAX movie, your parents would absolutely go see it at the closest theater to their house and would find a way to let everyone know who they were.

                  

The movie captures those two nights in Nashville at The Pinnacle. This one had some of the same elements, but was also very different.

                  

“I’m just now starting to loosen up,” he told the crowd midway through the set. “It’s Saturday night. It’s Valentine’s Day. I have nowhere to be for four days. You guys better get fucking comfortable.”

                  

We probably should have expected the unlikely. After all, this is Albany, which hasn’t hosted a NASCAR race since 1971 but is the birthplace of one of the best sing-alongs in the Church catalog, “Talladega.” Church and Luke Laird wrote the song on his bus one weekend here.

                  

“We were sitting on the bus and NASCAR was on the TV on mute,” Laird says. “Eric was looking at the TV and he said, ‘I’ve always wanted to write a song about the Daytona race.’ He said, ‘It’s not about the race. It’s about hanging out with your buddies and going with all your best friends and tailgating.’ So we tried to capture that emotion. For whatever reason, the rhymes with Daytona weren’t working, so we wrote a song called Talladega.”

                  

The song was on the set list on Saturday night, as it has been all over the country for the last 12 years. Fans bring Talladega flags into the pit on a regular basis; there was one at both the Toronto and Buffalo shows this week. And it all started in, of all places, Albany.

                  

Which is also where a quest ended for a lifelong Church fan. Now, it’s true that in this case “lifelong” doesn’t even cover his full career. Seven-year-old Greer has been attempting to get Church’s signature since she was four. Saturday night, after driving almost three hours to the show with her family, she hit upon a new idea: she made a sign that read, “Eric, Tryin’ my whole life to get my boot signed—please?”

                  

Church spotted it during “Springsteen” and ambled into the crowd, where Greer was seated a couple rows back from the rail. Now, if you’ve ever been there when Church goes into the crowd, you know exactly what happens—everyone pushes forward, hands reach out, shirts are tugged. It didn’t matter. Church had a very specific goal, and soon he was holding Greer on his hip while admiring her pink boots. She got her autograph, he never missed a word, and another Albany memory was made.

                  

By the end, Church wasn’t finished with surprises. “We always end the show a certain way,” Church said. “But not tonight.”

                  

He still brought the full two dozen musicians back to the stage. But they didn’t do usual show closer “Through My Ray-Bans.” Instead, he and Joanna Cotten took the microphones for a powerhouse rendition of “New York State of Mind,” each perfectly pushing the other to see just how far they could take it.

                  

We may not see another version of the song like that for years. And if history is a guide, it might be decades (or until they reopen the Funky Frog) before we see another show with these same elements. 

                  

It was eventful, it was unique, and it was improbable. Which makes sense, because it was Albany.