By Adam Lucas

 

RED ROCKS—After Monday night’s performance at Red Rocks, Eric Church has now played four shows at the iconic venue in the last 51 weeks.

              

In those four shows, he has played a total of approximately 111 songs (it depends on how you want to count all the medleys). And in those 111 songs, he has played 85 different songs.

              

This is why the people come. This is also why he’s the only solo artist in any genre of music to sell out six shows at Red Rocks in the past two years.

              

Katie and Mike Huber have been to six Church shows in the last 13 years, all in their home state of Wisconsin. But they knew they needed a show at Red Rocks to make their fanhood complete. “Red Rocks has been our dream venue since the beginning of time,” she says. Katie is a high school science teacher, and her fandom is so well known—and her commitment to seeing Church at Red Rocks so well established—that her entire classroom erupted when she battled through the long online buying process and received her confirmation emails for two shows this week.

              

They were there on Monday night, not far from a group from Georgia. Phil had been raised on country music and hated it. When his friend, Tim, offered to take him to the Double Down show in Greenville, Phil was extremely resistant…until he went. “And I was hooked,” he says. Now they’re diehards, joined by Gigi and Becki on Monday and armed with all the accessories—poster tubes, t-shirts, even Tim’s homemade t-shirt that he made to commemorate the Me and Myself Tour in 2006 after Church was booted by Rascal Flatts.

              

What keeps them coming back?

              

“The set list is different every single time,” Gigi said before the show began.

              

She had no idea how right she was about to be. July 18 marks the 20^th anniversary of the release of the Sinners Like Me album. To commemorate the occasion, Church decided to play the entire album on Monday night, plus some other rarities he played back in the days when he didn’t have enough songs to fill a full set.

              

How uncommon were the songs the packed crowd (the general admission line began before 10 a.m. on a day when doors opened at 6 p.m.) heard on Monday? Try these:

              

The Shape I’m In: A cover of a song by The Band, he played it in Winnipeg in 2017 but otherwise it’s only been played at clubs like the Funky Frog in Ohio.

              

My Heart’s Got a Memory: Tonight was the first non-club performance live.

              

If You Wanna Get to Heaven: A cover of a song by The Ozark Mountain Daredevils that he last performed at the Dusty Armadillo in Rootstown, Ohio.

              

Julia: You’d have to go back to hole in the wall clubs like, yes, the Dusty Armadillo to find other performances of this song (and by the way, did the Dusty Armadillo kind of rock?).

              

The Hard Way: He sang it in February in Albany, but prior to that the last performance was in 2017.

              

Monday night, he managed to play for over two hours without ever breaking into anything from the last three studio albums he’s released, meaning he didn’t play one single song he’s recorded in the last decade. The set list was so unusual that guitarist Driver Williams had to visit meet and greet to confirm a couple details, then stopped down the hall in production to help provide keys and beats per minute for a couple of the rarities.

              

Once they got on stage together, though, it very well might have been 2006 or 2007. Church’s most recent tour included a flute and a cello. So could that guy still rock for over two hours straight?

              

You’re damn right.

              

Midway through he played “What I Almost Was,” which included a perfect summary of the evening:

              

“I ain’t makin’ a killing, but then there’s those nights,

              

“When the song comes together and hits ‘em just right,

              

“The crowd’s on their feet ‘cause they can’t get enough,

              

“Of this music I make and I love.”

              

When he wrote it over 20 years ago, it was probably too far-fetched to even dream of three straight sold out nights at Red Rocks, a place he called “the most magical music venue on planet Earth.” But if he could have imagined it, he probably would have pictured a night just like this one.

              

“Driver, are we doing this?” he asked Williams on stage before they launched into “My Heart’s Got a Memory,” which appears only on the rare Caldwell County EP.

              

The answer, of course, was yes. And with this place as inspiration, they’re just getting started.