Review: At Charlotte show, NC’s Eric Church makes fans wait — then rewards them
Eric Church didn’t come out swinging Saturday night in Charlotte. In fact, for a while, he seemed to be holding something back.
In front of the sold-out crowd crammed inside Spectrum Center for his “Free the Machine Tour,” the black-Ray-Ban-wearing North Carolina native opened his show by spending nearly 40 minutes playing his 2025 album “Evangeline vs. The Machine” in its entirety, without a break.
It was a slow-burning, orchestral stretch that felt a little like a test. Not of loyalty, really, but rather of patience.
And it was apropos. The album the 48-year-old country-music star put out last May leans hard into mood, scale and theatricality — strings, horns, choirs, the whole shebang — built around the idea of pushing back against a culture that wants everything fast, familiar and instantly gratifying.
So what did he do with that in his home state? Well, for the first act of his nearly three-hour show, Church asked Charlotte to meet him in that slower, heavier space before giving them what they came for.
The response was respectful, if not exactly electric.
As fans stood for the opening run, a sprawling 23-piece backing ensemble — including six band members, eight backing vocalists plus returning Church muse Joanna Cotten, and a mini-orchestra with four horns and four strings — some swayed. Some nodded. Some locked in.
But as he moved into the later portion of the album, through “Evangeline” and “Rocket’s White Lincoln,” the signs of restlessness started to creep in. A few more people sat. A few more headed for the concourse to get another beer or to hit the restroom.
This just wasn’t the part of the show most came for, necessarily.
After he’d hit all his album marks, though, and made his first diversion into the past — 2018’s “Desperate Man” — the switch began to flip. People stood back up as Church grabbed the mic, ditched some of the stillness, and started moving, actually performing in the way most people associate with an Eric Church show. Cotten, who had already established herself as a force vocally, stepped forward and matched him energy for energy, the two of them bouncing off each other with a kind of loose, joyful chaos.
By the time he ripped into his defiant, almost-angry 2021 single “Stick That in Your Country Song,” fists were being pumped, the crowd was roaring, and it felt like the show had finally arrived.
It felt, in some ways, like the moment Church had been waiting for, too.
After all, if there’s a place he wanted to give fans exactly what they came for, this was it. And the Granite Falls/Caldwell County native — now a minority owner of the Hornets, still tied to the mountains west of here — definitely wanted to treat Saturday night like a homecoming.
“Well, it is safe to say — everybody knows this — I’m home tonight,” he told the crowd, pausing as the cheers swelled. “Whoever says you can’t go home again, they’re full of s---, ’cause I’m comin’ home tonight. Man, I’ve had this circled this entire tour. It’s been one that means a lot to me. My family’s here. My boys are here.” (Church has two sons, ages 14 and 11.)
“I want to play you as much music as you can handle for as long as we both can handle.”
With that, he launched into crowd-pleaser “Smoke a Little Smoke,” which detoured deliciously into a show-stopping, Tina Turner-style cover of “Proud Mary,” led by Cotten, with Church stepping back to let her shine as she absolutely shredded.
And from there, the rest of the show flowed, with little ebb.
The whole thing was a striking visual spectacle, too — waves of musicians rising from both sides, backup singers swaying and clapping, spotlights sweeping across the floor as a roaming camera zipped through the crowd like a drone that had just discovered country music.
But Church was the night’s star, and Carolina was the thread running through it.
“I grew up, as a lot of you know, in Caldwell County, in Granite Falls,” he told the crowd during his second break. “North Carolina, and this area, has shaped everything that I am in my life. It’s been my life. It’s been my foundation. It’s been my rock.”
Then he launched into “Mr. Misunderstood” — a song loosely based on his transformation from misfit teenager into country singer — the place erupting mid-song when he slipped “Charlotte, North Carolina” into a line that normally belongs to Beale Street. He followed that up with the wistfully rousing “Carolina,” for which he stretched the final “hooooooooooooooooome” so long you briefly wondered if he might actually black out mid-note.
The next section moved through deeper cuts like 2018’s “The Snake” and 2021’s “Bad Mother Trucker”; but after dropping a knockout performance of his soulful hit “Hell of a View” (with gorgeous harmonies from Cotten), he seemed to signal that he had a lot of hits left in him.
At 11:13 p.m., later than the vast majority of shows staged at Spectrum Center run, Church announced that he was kind of just getting started.
“This is, like, my favorite part of the show — and it’s not because of what we’re about to play. It’s, like, for the people that didn’t know what they were in for, like, their buddies are looking at them, going, ‘Man, I told you, you should drank some water. You should have probably ate that energy bar. Like, we’re climbing a mountain tonight, bro. This is not quick! You gotta stretch out. It’s gonna be a long night, okay? Take electrolytes!’”
(Someone near me yelled in response: “We’re here all night, baby!”)
“This is where we separate everybody, right here,” Church continued. “From here on, until the end ... we’re just gonna wing it and play songs. So hey, let’s see what happens.”
He then proceeded to rip through a succession of monster fan favorites — first “Springsteen” (which he capped with a bit of Bruce’s “Born to Run”), then “Drink in My Hand” and “Record Year,” followed by Merle Haggard homage “Pledge Allegiance to the Hag” and “Talladega.”
And as he ran through this section, he gradually stripped things down. First the orchestra disappeared. Then a few pieces of the band exited. Then more. Until eventually it was just Church and Cotten, standing side by side, trading lines on intimately realized versions of “Round Here Buzz” and “Like Jesus Does.”
But perhaps the most intimate moments of all had more to do with his eyes than with his songs.
After tearing through “Pledge Allegiance to the Hag,” Church did something he rarely does: He took off his sunglasses. He bowed his head slightly, closed his eyes, and seemed to say a brief, inaudible prayer before letting fans see his baby blues for a fleeting moment; it was a rare glimpse behind the armor of the persona he’s built over the years.
Just as quickly, the shades went back on, and stayed on — until he took them off again, at the very end of the night.
Several minutes after midnight, during show closer “Through My Ray-Bans,” with his career flashing by on a big screen filled with black-and-white archival footage from old shows, Church once again removed the glasses. This time, he held the moment longer, scanning the crowd with bare eyes, mouthing “thank you” again and again, clasping his hands, blowing a kiss.
For a few seconds, the character dropped away, to reveal the guy.
The gesture felt almost like a reward, for fans’ patience — and in a way, it felt like the whole show had been a methodically delivered reward for fans’ patience.
On a night when he could have from the get-go leaned into nostalgia, leaned into hits, leaned into the easiest possible version of himself, Church chose something harder. He made his home-state crowd climb a mountain with him first.
It wasn’t always smooth climb. But once they got there, he let them fully enjoy the view.
Eric Church’s setlist
1. “Hands of Time”
2. “Bleed on Paper”
3. “Johnny”
4. “Storm in Their Blood”
5. “Darkest Hour”
6. “Evangeline”
7. “Rocket’s White Lincoln”
8. “Clap Hands”
9. “Desperate Man”
10. “Stick That in Your Country Song”
11. “Smoke a Little Smoke” / “Proud Mary”
12. “Homeboy”
13. “Mr. Misunderstood”
14. “Carolina”
15. “Bad Mother Trucker”
16. “Sinners Like Me”
17. “The Outsiders”
18. “Give Me Back My Hometown”
19. “The Snake”
20. “Creepin’”
21. “Hell of a View”
22. “Springsteen”
23. “Drink in My Hand”
24. “Record Year”
25. “Pledge Allegiance to the Hag”
26. “Talladega”
27. “Cold One”
28. “Some of It”
29. “Round Here Buzz”
30. “Like Jesus Does”
31. “Through My Ray-Bans”
This story was originally published April 5, 2026 at 10:13 AM.
