OMAHA—The first time Eric Church came to Omaha, he had trouble filling a conference room.

The occasion was a visit to KAT 103.7 FM in February of 2006. Church had a single, “How ‘Bout You,” and an album on the way later that year, Sinners Like Me. 

The program director was trying to persuade radio station staff members to stop in and listen to Church. “We’ve got this new guy from Capitol Records,” he told Ritch Cassidy and Craig Allen. “I think you might like him. He’s got a track called ‘Lightning’ that’s pretty good.”

He eventually guilted nine people into filing into that conference room, where Church played some of the songs from his upcoming album and then played a couple of songs live. 

“I knew right away I had never heard anything like this before,” Cassidy says. 

You can say you would have seen it, too, on that day. This is Chief we’re talking about! But remember that on that day there was no “Springsteen,” no “Drink In My Hand,” no “Record Year.” There was just a guy who was reasonably popular back in North Carolina and about a dozen songs.

Cassidy and Allen started making calls. They helped land Church a Thursday night slot across the river in Council Bluffs, Iowa, at the Whiskey Roadhouse. The venue was attached to a casino, and on the first night, Church didn’t quite outdraw the slot machines. 

But the few who were there kept talking. And Church kept coming back to the Council Bluffs/Omaha area. When he wasn’t sure if anyone outside the Tar Heel state would listen…he had Omaha. Rascal Flatts would soon kick him off the “Me and My Gang” tour, prompting him to start the “Me and Myself” tour. The premise was simple: he played clubs in the same cities where Flatts was playing arenas but started his set close to midnight after the Flatts show was finished…and still, he had Omaha.

“It was one of the first places,” guitarist Driver Williams says, “that we watched it double every time we’d go there. It might have been 12 people the first time. But then it was 30, and then 100, and it kept getting bigger.”

Church would eventually shoot the video for “Drink In My Hand” at Stir Cove in Council Bluffs, with the cameras set up for two straight nights. The Omaha/Council Bluffs area has been pseudo-home territory for Church ever since.

And on Thursday…he had Omaha. Which is why nearly 20,000 people crammed into the CHI Health Center in Omaha to watch Thursday night’s show.

“Every time he comes back to Omaha, it’s like a high school friend or your brother coming back to town,” Cassidy says. “It could be a state holiday when Eric Church has a show in Omaha. People have been talking about this for months.”

The people talking about it included Ella Langley, who was on the first of her six nights on the Free the Machine tour and told the crowd, “I can’t believe I’m getting paid to watch an Eric Church show.”

Langley is on a rocketship of her own; “Choosin’ Texas” is chasing number-one on the Billboard Hot 100 chart, which would put her in a category with fewer than ten other women in the history of country music. That’s elite company, but on Thursday night she was just a Church fan—albeit one who began her evening on stage and then spent the rest of it seated on the floor of the CHI Health Center where she could watch Church and dance along to the 31-song set without being seen by the huge crowd. You try dancing while sitting on concrete; it takes commitment.

It could have made sense for Church to ease back into the tour after suffering an illness that forced him to miss the Grammys on Sunday. This is a taxing, three-show weekend across three states. But this was Omaha, so he played more songs than any other stop on the tour and spent over two and a half hours on stage. 

He made the spur of the moment decision to add “Round Here Buzz” to the set. He also observed the two-year anniversary of the death of Toby Keith, with whom he toured in 2011—around the same time he was recording that “Drink In My Hand” video. “Two years ago, I lost one of my really good friends and mentors in this business,” Church said. “So I’m going to give this a try.” The result was a gorgeous cover of “Don’t Let the Old Man In,” which instantly became one of the highlights of the tour so far.

Twenty years ago this week, nine people sat in a conference room and watched a young artist who didn’t have the popularity to fill a single row at the CHI Health Center. When Church walked out of that room, Cassidy grabbed a marker. On the conference room white board, he wrote, “9 ppl watched the making of a superstar” and drew an arrow to the chair where Church had sat.

Twenty years later, the superstar is made. And one thing has remained constant. “I have always,” Church said from the stage, “been able to count on Omaha and Council Bluffs.”