By Adam Lucas

 

JACKSONVILLE—Eric Church released “These Boots” nearly 20 years ago. It was July 18, 2006, to be exact, or 7,207 days ago.

                  

Since then, it’s become the type of signature song that is an essential part of his live show. It’s grown and evolved with him. Go back and listen to an older live recording. There’s a 2017 version they play semi-regularly on Outsiders Radio, and in that song, Church is defiant. He’s a little pissed off at these boots.

                  

On the Free the Machine tour, it’s been a softer version, usually just Church and a guitar. It’s almost wistful, a song from an artist who has gotten older and smarter. If you liked it in 2006, you probably relate to it even more today, which is why hundreds of fans at VyStar Veterans Memorial Arena were holding a boot above their head while he sang—and one of those fans was Ashley McBryde as she stood side stage.

                  

“When Eric writes a song, you believe what he’s saying,” said McBryde, who has done three terrific opening sets at the last three Free the Machine shows and has one more tomorrow in Tampa. “None of his songs sound like a costume he’s putting on. When country music is what it’s supposed to be, it’s regular people singing about regular things and regular troubles and how to overcome them. And with Eric’s songwriting, you believe what you’re listening to.”

                  

McBryde recognizes it in Chief because she writes the exact same way. She knows what it means to write what you believe in, and she knows what it’s like to listen to someone who makes you believe.

                  

That’s why all of these people are here every night. In Friday night’s pit was a group of families and their young kids, all of them dressed in light blue shirts that read, “Alexa, play Eric Church. It’s Elizabeth’s 8^th birthday.”

                  

There was another couple in the pit that had brought their two sons to their first concert. It had to be Eric Church, because it was at one of his shows in 2011 that their parents first met. At that point, “These Boots” was already five years old.

                  

By then, he’d played it, what, hundreds of times live? Now that number has to be in the thousands. 

                  

But never, ever the way he did on Friday. It wasn’t originally on the set list. But a wise man named Hawk Church pointed out it was a necessity. “Dad, if you don’t play that tonight,” Church’s younger son told him earlier in the day, “you might as well quit.”

                  

Hawk was right. Tour life means there’s always a suitcase around. Sometimes you don’t even unpack them. Sometimes you just take out one set of clothes and throw another set back in there. 

 

And sometimes you forget those suitcases are still on the floor. Which is what happened to Church, leading him to crash into a suitcase with a thud…resulting in a broken foot.

                  

So Church played the entire show on Friday night in a walking boot. Following the usual format of playing the entire Evangeline vs. The Machine album front to back, and then “Desperate Man” followed by “Stick That In Your Country Song,” it was probably the first time in concert history that a singer played the first ten songs of the night without ever mentioning the fact that he was hobbling around the stage in a walking boot.

                  

And there were some hobbles. Joanna Cotten was visibly unsure if the duo were still going to dance through the “Woo woo” part of “Desperate Man.” Church made it happen, but it looked like it hurt.

                  

Perhaps because the pain had lowered his defenses, Church let “Look Good and You Know It” slide onto the set list. That’s one that Katherine Church requests almost every night, but it hasn’t made it onto the set list since the show in Seattle on Nov. 8. Friday night marked just the song’s fourth appearance on this tour. 

                  

Which just goes to show what an incredible song catalog Church is holding. The “Look Good” intro, with Moiba Mustapha and Maureen Murphy, is a show-stopper (in fact, it actually did stop the show the first time they did it on tour, with Church exclaiming “Damn!” after the intro in Milwaukee back in September). 

                  

“These Boots” has now been played two dozen times just on this tour. Friday night’s version, which came just one slot before the on-the-fly addition of “Mixed Drinks About Feelings” as the finale, is one we will remember. Instead of “kicked myself more times than not,” this time they “kicked that suitcase.” Church also specified that he still “drags his left leg sometimes,” since that’s the leg that featured the walking boot.

                  

Usually, crowds are treated to a little local improvisation during “Round Here Buzz.” On Friday, though, this was the last verse of “These Boots”:

                  

“These boots is one song from the end

                  

I can’t wait to see Jacksonville again 

                  

Until I do, I’ll still be kicking ass in these boots.”

                  

It was a fitting confirmation of something he’d promised back near the beginning of the show. After “Stick That,” he was explaining exactly what had caused his injury. He shrugged and looked down at his foot.

                  

“Tonight,” he said, “what I lack in mobility I will make up in passion.”