By Adam Lucas

RED ROCKS—We’re starting this recap of night two of Eric Church at Red Rocks with a quote from Drake.

This will all make sense in a second. Bear with us.

Drake (yes, the rapper) was on stage in London a couple days ago wrapping up a three-day appearance at a festival. This is what he told his crowd:

“Three nights headlining, three different sets, three different vibes. You name another artist that can do that and bring him up here and we can clash right now.”

Well, Drake, that sound you hear isn’t people booing. It’s them shouting “Chiiiieeeeeeffffff.” Because after night two at Red Rocks it’s becoming clear that it would be very simple to name an artist who can headline for three nights and do three different sets and three different vibes: 

Eric Fuckin’ Church.

Monday night’s Eric Church vs. The Machine performance was spiritual. It was tears in the crowd and even a couple of tears on the stage. Walking out, you felt just a little bit healed.

Then the Church road crew—still the unquestioned best in the business—spent two hours tearing down that extremely complicated set and loaded in a completely new one. 

And if Monday night’s performance provided some cleansing, Tuesday’s Eric Church vs. The ECB was much simpler: it was fun.

The tone was set early, when Church walked out alone with a guitar and hit the first notes of “Drowning Man,” a frequent opener on the Double Down tour. He then proceeded to play 22 more songs, representing seven different albums.

And the album that saw the most songs played? He played five from his very first album, “Sinners Like Me,” which was released nearly 20 years ago in 2006. 

That age led to some funny moments, as when Church had a couple hiccups during “Before She Does.” Which makes sense, because he last played it live nearly three years ago and had played it live a grand total of six times in the past six years. The slip didn’t matter; Church just grinned. “I told you it had been a while,” he said. 

Except for “Springsteen”—which still came with a different “Born To Run” intro because Church just can’t help himself—every single song was different on Tuesday. He’s now played 45 different songs over two nights. 

If you had walked into Red Rocks off a Denver street and knew absolutely nothing about Eric Church, you would likely not believe that Tuesday’s performer was the same as Monday’s headliner. The set was different. The songs were different. And yes, Drake, the vibe was different.

“The biggest thing to tell you,” Church said from the stage, “is that if you’re paying attention from last night to tonight, we’ve not played one song tonight that we played last night. And we’re going to keep doing that.”

He and the ECB didn’t just play the songs. You could see them living those moments again. There were over two dozen people on the stage on Monday night. Tuesday, there were mostly just the originals. 

They started playing “Lotta Boot Left to Fill” in Denver at the Grizzly Rose in November of 2006. Tuesday night, it was back. And he didn’t just play it—he really heard it, too, listening along with the crowd to the relic from his past.

“Damn, we were punks,” Church said at the conclusion of the song. But he also knew that being a punk is occasionally what navigated him through a career that has never been stereotypical, and also a key reason why he was standing in the spotlight at Red Rocks.

Maybe he and the ECB were punks. But now, in 2025, it feels a little more like a shirt that perhaps you wouldn’t wear anymore, but you wore the hell out of it in a different era.

Punks? Maybe. But it wasn’t an unpleasant memory. “Sorry,” he told the crowd, “I’m enjoying that more than I should.”

It’s been almost two decades. But he and the ECB spent over two hours Tuesday night proving that it’s still true: “Just put me on a stage, man, turn it up and I’ll turn it loose.”

Loose…but still very, very good. With dozens of friends and family in Denver, Monday night was a late one. Church finally left the venue at 4:22 a.m. At some point during the five hours he spent socializing—“with some whiskey,” he admitted—he decided it would be a fantastic idea to play a couple of rarely performed covers on Tuesday. 

One was “Gimme Shelter,” which he started almost sheepishly. “It was a great idea at 4:22,” he said. “I’m not currently feeling the same way.”

And yet, it was great, getting a boost from Joanna Cotten and benefiting from each singer pushing the other. Maybe an easy one after that? Of course not. He followed it with Bob Seger’s mile-a-minute “Get Outta Denver.”

By then he was rolling. Church traditionally tries to find a location-specific rhyme during the “I’ve never had big city eyes/Hell, I’ve never been east of Dallas” portion of “Round Here Buzz.”

So what did he do on Tuesday? “I never knew there was a town called Morrison/If you think I’m going to rhyme that you’re out of your mind, son.”

“I got creative,” he said with a smile. Everything was clicking. Maybe it was a musical salute to line of scrimmage improvisation maestro Peyton Manning, who was among the luminaries in attendance on Tuesday.

Due to curfew, the fun finally ended just before 11:30 p.m. But Church couldn’t keep from tacking one more unplanned song to the set list, a solo rendition of “Lightning” (yes, another rarity—Church has performed that one at a large venue show just once since the fall of 2022) that might be one of the all-time best performances of a song he wrote before he ever inked a record deal. 

How good was it? Other than the diehards singing every word, the only sound audible from the rapturous crowd came from the very back, near row 65 or 70. As Church sang the final verse, one fan’s voice rang out: “Thank you, Eric!”

It’s hard enough just to see that far. Think about how hard it is to stand on the stage with only a guitar and resonate with someone who is standing at the top of the venue. That type of connection felt more like the first song of Wednesday night’s Eric Church vs. The Guitar set than the last one of Tuesday’s show. 

Oh yes, there is still one more. Three shows in three days. Three very different performances. And leaving aside the factual inaccuracy of Drake’s comment, you’re left with one artist being extremely complimentary of anyone who can pull off what he’s boasting about.

Three different vibes on three straight days as a headliner? Drake is exactly right: the vast majority of major stars wouldn’t even attempt it.

Church is now 67 percent of the way there. And what then?

Well, it’s time to clash.