By Adam Lucas

HOLLYWOOD, FL.—Leave it to music to allow you to draw a straight line between Woodlands Barbecue in Blowing Rock, N.C., and Rota, Spain.

The former, of course, is where Eric Church played his first real gig, doing his best to entertain small crowds in the Monday at 6 p.m. time slot. At his first show, he played the 12 songs he knew, then had to make a simple request of a crowd that unexpectedly wanted more. “Write down the songs you want to hear, and I will learn them before next week,” he said. They came back the next week, and they’ve been coming back ever since, all the way through Friday night in Hollywood, Fla.

A couple decades later, Kashus Culpepper was in the Navy and stationed in Rota, Spain. He knew he could sing but had no idea how to play the guitar. “A buddy found a guitar for me,” he said Friday night after his set. “I was stuck in my room, so I took the guitar and went on YouTube and learned how to play it. He told me to bring the guitar to these bonfires we had every Friday and Saturday night. I started playing songs and people kept asking for other songs. So I’d say, ‘I don’t know that song, but by next weekend I’ll have it down.’ I just kept doing that week by week.”

And somehow those same two improvisers ended up on the same Hard Rock Live stage on Friday. One who has been around the world since those early days at Woodlands. And one who went around the world with the Navy to figure out how to come back home. 

Culpepper was in his dressing room about 15 minutes before Church took the stage. An Alabama native (just for reference, he was raised in Alexander City, or about 90 minutes away from the Gadsden, Ala. protagonist in “Lynyrd Skynyrd Jones”), he cited an eclectic mix of influences ranging from Wilson Pickett to Aretha Franklin to Conway Twitty to Hank Williams Sr. to Etta James. When he talked about Church, though, he had to sing a few bars. He lit up when he sang “Talladega.” He beamed as he belted “Drink in My Hand.” He looked blissful as he worked his way into “Record Year.”

“I’ve just always loved the way Eric Church paints pictures,” Culpepper said. “He stays true to his roots. Think about when you listen to ‘Talladega.’ You can see that picture. It doesn’t matter if it’s a song like that or a party song like ‘Drink in My Hand.’ He’s always able to paint that picture and talk about life.”

A few of those Church songs, of course, were often in the repertoire around those Spanish bonfires. And if we’d told that Navy veteran then that just a few years later he’d be opening for Church?

Culpepper’s eyes widened. “I would’ve said, ‘Get the fuck out of here, dawg,’” he said. “I was just drinking a beer with my buddies, playing guitar and trying to get through the day. And music has always helped me do that.”

And on Friday it brought him where he’d never even dreamed of going. Hard Rock Live is an interesting crowd. It’s a casino crowd as much as an Eric Church crowd. For the first time this tour, it included fans who just happened to be at the hotel rather than purposely seeking out a Church show. The venue is a little smaller, so certain pieces of the usual Free the Machine set—most notably the skycam—were absent.

Early in the show, it looked like Church was going to have to persuade the 7,000-seat venue to follow him on the journey he’s taken every night of the tour. He seemed to relish the challenge.

“We grew up in rooms like this,” he told the crowd. “Actually a lot smaller than this. But they were built like this, where we could look each other in the eye.”

That eye contact seemed to finally bond them. Around the time Church played that old Spain bonfire favorite, “Drink in My Hand,” you could see all three levels of the venue start to come to life. 

“I’ve been doing this a long time,” Church said, “and I’ve seen this happen before. The longer we play, the more you come with us.”

He eventually stayed on stage until well after midnight, constantly signaling that he had yet another idea for another song he wanted to do. As the clock ticked later, the crowd seemed more energized.

Earlier in the evening, Culpepper had identified exactly why that phenomenon might occur.

“You know what it does?” he said when he had finished his dressing room medley with a couple bars from “Springsteen.” “All of these songs, they just make you feel so good.”