By Adam Lucas

LAKE TAHOE—It might have been around Green River, Utah. Maybe it was near Eureka, Nevada. Tex Kam doesn’t remember exactly. But he knows that at some point during his multiple-day drive from Red Rocks to Lake Tahoe, there was a brief moment when he wondered, “Haven’t you seen enough Eric Church shows?”

He’d already made the nearly 1,300 mile drive from his home in Edmonton, Alberta, to Red Rocks for all three of last week’s shows at the iconic venue. And as long as he was down in the United States, he thought he might as well drive across the western part of the country and catch two more shows in Lake Tahoe. 

He took his time, made some stops, and by the time he arrived in Tahoe, he’d already driven approximately 3,200 miles. By the time he returns home later this week, he’ll be over 5,000 miles to see these five concerts. So you can understand how he might have a moment of doubt. Five thousand miles is a lot of opportunity to think, “Tex, maybe you’ve seen enough Church shows for right now.”

But then…

“He delivers a new experience every single time!” says Kam, who has now seen over a dozen Church shows. So he drove on, and he was in the Lake Tahoe crowd these past two nights as Church performed a total of 29 different songs in the 41 that he played over the two evenings.

That included Thursday night, a perfect Lake Tahoe evening with a sliver of the moon framed just off stage right as Church began the evening. Most everyone there had experienced some variation of the day Chief talked about—with his family in town, he’d combined golf and water pursuits to make it a memorable day. Lake Tahoe has a way of doing that to you. It’s not exactly easy to get here, especially if you’re coming from somewhere further east like Nashville (or, say, Edmonton) but the reward once you arrive is significant. The weather and the scenery and the activities can quickly occupy an entire couple of days.

Then the sun goes down and you go to an Eric Church show. As he broke into “Springsteen” late in the set, Church said, “This song was actually made for nights just like tonight.”

Nights that had all the hits but also had a few unexpected twists. He gave the crowd “Like a Wrecking Ball” for just the third time in the last two years (to the surprise of his 11-year-old son, Hawk, who walked onto the bus brandishing the set list a couple minutes before show time and pointed to "Wrecking Ball" while asking, "Are you really going to play that?"). He played “Talladega” after omitting it last night, and the crowd was ready. A handful of tiny checkered flags instantly sprouted in the pit and waved throughout the song.

It was the end of the set, though, where he began to get creative. Already bumping up against a very firm curfew time, he tried to maximize every minute he had left available. After all, as he told the crowd, “This is two of my favorite couple days of the summer.”

So he played “Sinners Like Me” as scheduled. That was supposed to be the penultimate song of the evening, but then he began making changes on the fly. He called Joanna Cotten to the front of the stage and they combined on “Darkest Hour.” Then they roared through one of the best recent performances of “Like Jesus Does,” which was slated to be the finale.

But the crowd roared so long and so loud that Church just couldn’t leave them. No one else on stage had any idea what might come next—even the band was still lingering nearby in case he pressed them back into service—before he decided to squeeze “McArthur” into the very few remaining minutes.

It was just the second live performance of that song, with the other coming last week at Red Rocks. 

Tex Kam, of course, has seen them both. And he has plenty of highlights from the last week of shows to replay in his mind during the long drive home.

“I’ve never in all my life seen a musician that touches people the way Eric Church does,” Kam says. “You leave each and every concert feeling like you were sitting in his living room and he was telling you stories.

“Every doubt I have in my mind about why I come to all these shows is erased as soon as I feel the vibe of the crowd, meet other sinners and settle into another night of storytelling by one of the best who has ever done it.”