By Adam Lucas

 

BUFFALO—Friday’s show in Buffalo really began around midnight Thursday night in Toronto. 

         

Eric Church had just left the stage at Scotiabank Arena. But he wanted to gather with the band in his dressing room to work through a planned addition for the next night’s show. 

         

Last weekend, he’d heard “New York State of Mind” on the playlist in his dressing room before a show. “We should do that,” he said. 

         

Just one slight problem: he’d never done it before with this particular group of musicians. He sang it in 2022 at Madison Square Garden as the opener to the epic conclusion of the Gather Again tour, and he did a snippet of the song in Brooklyn in 2017. The Barclays Center version was acoustic with Church by himself on stage, and the Garden rendition included, as Church likes to say on the Free the Machine tour, “the OG band,” featuring those who have been with him since they were crowding into a van driving from bar to bar.

         

This one would be different, because he wanted to include all two dozen musicians. And by the way, also add Ella Langley, who was already the night’s opening act, so why not just bring her up on stage for the song?

         

If you’re going to be on stage with Church, you quickly learn to adapt. But this one was entirely new. 

         

Hence the midnight meeting. 

         

There are platinum selling artists who would rather do without Autotune for a day than deviate from their pre-planned tour set list. And then there’s Church, just working up a little something in his dressing room less than 24 hours before he plays it.

         

As Church correctly said during the course of Friday’s show, “The ladies and gentlemen you have seen on this stage are as good as it fucking gets anywhere.” They are professionals who can play or sing anything.

         

And even a couple of them admitted after the fact that there had been a few nerves before “New York State of Mind.”

         

If you’re going to play something for the first time in four years, Billy Joel isn’t the easy way to do it. Joel originally did the song in the key of C. It sounds great when he does it, but as you might have noticed when you try to sing along in your car, it’s very high.

         

And if it’s a challenge alone in your car, now imagine doing it on stage in front of a sold out Friday evening crowd in Buffalo.

         

The best endorsement for how difficult it was might have come from Joanna Cotten, who high-fived Church when he was finished with the song. “Shit,” he said, “that’s high.”

         

The Joel tribute was only part of a memorable night for the crowd in Buffalo. Church played “A Man Who Was Gonna Die Young” for the first time on this tour and first time on a tour stage since July of 2023 in Dallas. He added a little extra bass to “Smoke a Little Smoke” with some extended vocals from Armand Hutton pairing with Cotten. Friday’s version of “Springsteen” was one of the best on this tour. 

         

Church was clearly having fun. He apologized to the crowd for missing his cue on “Sinners Like Me” and told a story about an early show at Buffalo’s Club Paradise when the Chosen Few Motorcycle Club elected to join him on stage to sing “How ‘Bout You,” no doubt energized by the lyrics, “I think we’re the chosen few.”

         

“They sounded great,” Church very wisely said. “I just want that on the record.”

         

When a fan in the pit foolishly chose to fire a boot on stage during “These Boots,” Church just grinned. “I’ve been dodging boots for 20 years,” he said, “and you thought you could get me?”

         

But it’s those three minutes with Church and Langley together that most fans are likely to go home talking about. As Chief often says, live music is about a moment, about hearing something on one particular night in one particular room that will never be the same again. That’s what “New York State of Mind” was on this evening.

         

There was no big buildup. No one knew it was coming. Church said nothing at all as the song began, which somehow made it a little cooler. There was no opportunity to get ready—it just happened. Suddenly he was singing, and then Langley appeared from the back of the stage. The whole thing happened quicker than you could get a fresh beer from the concession stand. And then the moment was gone.

         

It was all made possible by the willingness to take some risks and by the work of a group of musicians that has found a rhythm over the last nine months. You can go watch them on an IMAX big screen Saturday night at a theater near you or listen to the new live album that was recorded at The Pinnacle last May. They will universally tell you how much more comfortable they are now than when those shows were recorded. They’re having fun. They’ve figured out that being on tour with Eric Church means just when they get content, he finds a new way to push them.

         

And that leads to nights like Friday.

         

When they finished sound check Friday afternoon, Langley and Church worked through a few details of how to conclude the song. Then the woman with the number-one song in the United States of America turned and faced the horns and orchestra and background vocals. “Y’all sound,” she said with admiration, “so good.”