By Adam Lucas

RED ROCKS—For this show, you make the cardiologist wait.                 

This is Eric Church at Red Rocks for the first time in nine years. So David Grafman wasn’t going to reschedule his cardiologist appointment in St. Louis, but he certainly didn’t mind telling the good doctor he would have to wait a minute.                 

It was April 7 and tickets were due to go on sale for the July 14-16 three-day Church gig at Red Rocks. Grafman was in the online queue as he sat in the doctor’s office. Around the time his cardiologist entered the room, he neared the front of the queue.                  

“I’m not trying to be rude,” Grafman told the doctor. “But I’m trying to get tickets right now.”                 

“Who is it for?” the doctor asked.                

“Eric Church at Red Rocks,” Grafman replied.                 

“Whoa,” said his doctor. “I don’t want to get in the way of that.”                 

And he didn’t. Grafman scored tickets for all three nights for he and his wife, Lisa, which put them in the sellout crowd on Monday night for night one, Eric Church vs. The Machine.                  

Because Church is Church, he can’t simply do a three-night stand at Red Rocks. He has to do three totally different nights. Monday was a full-scale production, with a complete horns and strings sections plus a choir. He played the entire Evangeline vs the Machine album front to back and then played 14 more songs. There were some favorites, including “Knives of New Orleans.” And there were some rarities, including “Lynyrd Skynyrd Jones” outside the state of Alabama for only the second time in the last three years.                 

This first night was about finally—finally!—getting to do this again in this iconic venue. A group of eight friends from West Virginia were the first to burst through the general admission line at the top of the venue and then race to the first row of GA seating at center stage.                 

The Maones, the Gearys, the Yeagers and the Moores have seen Church at almost every possible venue, including the parking lot of a Wal-Mart in Wheeling, West Virginia 15 years ago.                  

“This is a bucket list show,” they said. “We had to be here.”                 

And as Ashley Maone surveyed the stage from her perfect location, there was really only one thing left to say: “I am so fucking pumped for this.”                 

 What made Monday fun was that it wasn’t just the crowd who seemed excited. The people on stage were, too. Jeff Hyde showed up wearing a Red Rocks t-shirt (and also was stopped by well-meaning security for forgetting his credential, a scene the even-tempered Hyde handled with a flawlessly bemused response). Driver Williams brought his wife and kids so they could enjoy the experience with him.                  

And then there was Church.                 

Eric Church has stood on virtually every possible stage in the United States of America, from small bar to giant stadium. But a lot has happened since he last stood on this one in 2016, some of which even he probably wouldn’t have believed. He’s released five new albums. The best bar in Nashville has his name on it. He owns part of the Charlotte Hornets and is texting buddies with Michael Jordan. His brother died. Church himself almost died.                 

So as much as he is still the exact same guy—watching him rip through “Creepin’” made that clear—he’s the exact same guy with a lot more life experiences.                  

Those experiences added some of the best moments to Monday’s show. “Sinners Like Me” is a Church Choir favorite because it connects to so many different people who can see themselves in the lyrics. At the core, though, it’s a true story about Church’s family. They were almost all in attendance on Monday, including his mother, Rita—the original “mama who had a soft spot for a hell raisin’ boy”—who tapped her right foot as the crowd sang along with every word.                 

It’s a great song. But it’s also their lives, which somehow enabled Church to connect with so many other lives.                 

And he’s still doing it. He introduced “Holdin’ My Own” by explaining how it was added to tonight’s set list. “I saw a photo of 2016, the last time we played Red Rocks,” he told the crowd. “At that time, my oldest son was five and my youngest was in one of those Baby Bjorn things.”                  

Church grinned. “He looked like a green bean with legs.”                 

In the crowd, that former green bean with legs—now ten years old—provided a quintessential ten-year-old reaction:                  

He buried his head in his hands, the perfect picture of ten-year-old embarrassment. It doesn’t matter how many records Eric Church has sold or how many nights he sold out the “greatest venue in the world,” as he told the crowd on Monday. On this night, you could almost hear the “Awwww, Dad!” from several rows away.                 

To him, this will be the evening his dad compared him to a vegetable in front of a sellout crowd of strangers. 

To the rest of us? It’s simply one of the best shows we’ve ever seen.

“I’ll see you in another nine years,” Church told the crowd. Then he chuckled. “Nah, I’m just kidding,” he said. “Shit, I’ll see you tomorrow night.”

Someone warn the Denver-area cardiologists.