Review: Eric Church mixes Pink Floyd, big-band arrangements for maverick country music

Eric Church is country music’s most courageous and unpredictable superstar — both musically and culturally.

He’s a gun owner who has advocated for gun control measures. He’s a libertarian who proudly received a COVID-19 vaccine in a photo on the cover of Billboard magazine in 2021. He called out the Nashville industrial complex on his latest album, last year’s “Evangeline vs. the Machine.”

Moreover, Church has never stayed safely in country’s lane. He has incorporated elements of electronica, heavy metal, hip-hop, R&B and even orchestral music when it wasn’t fashionable. In songs, he has demonstrated his wide range of interests, name-dropping everyone from Merle Haggard and Hank Williams Jr. to Bruce Springsteen and Elvis Costello.

And, when it comes to concerts, Church does it his way, whether performing Springsteenian three-hour marathons, playing two nights in one city with only a handful of repeated songs or presenting an all-acoustic gospel set at the massive Stagecoach festival in Southern California in front of 90,000 people in 2024.

On Saturday, Feb. 7, the ever-surprising Church brought brass and string musicians along with eight backup vocalists — 16 extra musicians besides his seven-person band — to Grand Casino Arena in St. Paul.

It was a long, musically rewarding if oddly paced performance. The concert, like Church’s career, was about conviction not convention, about evolving, not standing pat, about the moment, not tradition.

Following a promising set by newcomer Ella Langley featuring her hits “Choosin’ Texas” and the bluesy “You Look Like You Love Me,” Church thought 21 minutes of Pink Floyd songs would be the perfect prelude to his performance.

Church kicked off his set on his Free the Machine Tour by playing the entirety of “Evangeline vs. the Machine,” another curveball project and the slowest-selling album of his career. It’s also his shortest LP, with a mere eight songs.

The music manifested where the 48-year-old North Carolinian’s head is at right now.

The opening “Hands of Time” waxed about not being young anymore but still liking loud guitars, with a tip of the hat to AC/DC, Lynyrd Skynyrd, Waylon Jennings, Bob Seger and “Amazing Grace.”

“Johnny” reflected Church’s reaction as the father of two boys to the 2023 Nashville Covenant School shooting. He pleaded for a hero named Johnny to magically return to combat the devil depicted in song by Charlie Daniels. “Machines control the people/And the people shoot the kids,” Church sang as the words seared Saturday in a community that had seen its own elementary school shooting just last year.

Known for his nasally twang, Church summoned his high tenor for the only time all night on the southern soul, gospel choir-bathed “Darkest Hour,” the most potent number from the new album.

Of course, the CMA’s 2020 entertainer of the year came to preach to the 14,000-voice “Church Choir,” what his fans are known as, starting with the emphatic “Desperate Man” and a rousing, defiant “Stick That in Your Country Song.”

For 2½ hours, Church brought an animated intensity, though he seemed more relaxed and less wired than in previous Twin Cities appearances including 2022 at U.S. Bank Stadium with Morgan Wallen as his opening act.

Church mentioned that he’s seen the news on television lately but did not address the ICE operation in Minnesota. He simply said something that he has long believed in: “It’s not about what divides us; it’s about what unites us.” Then he praised the power of music.

Church played nearly two-dozen selections from his catalog, including the crowd favorites “Drink in My Hand,” “Smoke a Little Smoke” and “Springsteen” as well as covers of John Fogerty’s “Proud Mary,” Springsteen’s “Atlantic City” and Johnny Cash & June Carter’s hit “Jackson.” There was a duo segment with his longtime backup singer Joanna Cotten as well as a few solo acoustic numbers near night’s end.