By Adam Lucas

SALT LAKE CITY—At 11:23 p.m., Eric Church told a rowdy crowd in Salt Lake City, “We’ve worked very hard on this show.”

He wasn’t kidding. At 4:55 a.m., a little over 18 hours earlier, Thursday’s work had begun. That’s when a series of 18-wheelers bearing the Eric Church logo and carrying the entire stage, video and lighting setup for the evening’s performance rolled onto the corner of John Stockton Drive and Karl Malone Drive outside the Delta Center.

Inside the building, a dozen crew members were already beginning the walk and chalk process, as they laid out where everything would be placed on a completely empty arena floor. Just a few hours earlier, the building had hosted a Utah Jazz NBA game. The arena crew quickly turned it over to eliminate any traces of a basketball court, and then the Church crew and local riggers took over.

It’s a fascinating process to watch people take a completely blank canvas and turn it into the elaborate stage setup fans saw when they walked inside on Thursday. Carpenter Willy Williams was the first man on the floor and was already using lasers and a tape measure to mark the corners of where the stage would eventually stand.

It looks complicated. “But it’s really about people,” Williams said as more crew members began to trickle onto the floor, each with a specific responsibility that was integral to making the night’s show happen.

These are not your normal handy carpenters. These are savants, most of whom come with a sense of humor and the ability to work insane hours to bring the show together.

“Watch this,” said Meesha Kosciolek. “Hey Michael Todd, how far is it from here to that handrail?”

Michael Todd Stembridge, who has been with Church for 13 years, eyeballed the distance. “I’d say it’s about 11-7 5/8,” he said.

They pulled out a tape measure. It was 11-8. With a one-second glance, he’d missed it by 3/8 of an inch.

“I’ve measured a lot of stuff over the last 13 years,” Michael Todd said with a grin and a shrug.

It takes over 120 people to make the Free the Machine tour work. Some of them are among the most talented guitar players or drummers or, yes, singers in the world and you see them every night on stage. Others are among the most talented carpenters in the world and if all goes well, you never see them at all.

Salt Lake City is well aware of what happens when the full crew isn’t available. As Church referenced on Thursday night, it was in this same building on January 31, 2015, when the norovirus left almost everyone except Church bedridden. His solution? He played an acoustic show and also scheduled a return trip later in the year to play the full regular show.

“To this day,” Church recalled on Thursday, “it is one of my favorite shows.”

But it is undoubtedly easier to pull it off when you have the services of the entire crew. One that awoke well before the sun rose on Thursday to make sure every corner was perfectly flush, every measurement was precise.

That’s how you create the setting that allowed, for example, Church and Joanna Cotten to duet on “Atlantic City” for the second time this tour. Except this time, near the end, they made an adjustment to the words, singing, “Meet me tonight in Salt Lake City.”

Church has made it a point on this tour to thank everyone involved in the massive undertaking. “It’s my job to give you a show you’ve never seen before,” he said. He traditionally ends each show on this tour with “Through My Ray-Bans,” as he brings everyone back out and ends the night with a final bow that includes everyone who appeared on stage.

But by the time those final salutes were being given, Willy Williams was already gone. He’d hopped on the catering bus that departed before the end of the show for the five-hour drive to Boise. Walk and chalk begins Friday morning at 5 a.m.

He’ll be there, tape measure in hand. He and the crew will have driven through the night and worked through the day to turn an empty arena into a stage, and if all goes well, you’ll never be able to tell how they did it. Which is just the way they like it.