This is a good Pea topic: Eric Church concert

I’m not familiar with Eric Church, never heard of him, but upon clicking and reading the article it sounds like he sang covers the whole time?

To me, that’s not creative/artistic license/new direction…that’s just expensive karaoke.

I would not be happy to have a singer pushing his religion in a concert, then singing covers. What a tool.

I go to a concert to hear the songs the artist is famous for. Yes! I would be pretty unhappy.

Eric Church is the ultimate douche so I think he did this on purpose just to be an asshole.

I think I would be more appreciative of something like this if it was someone I really loved, who I've seen in concert several times before, etc.

If you were a huge, huge fan of someone back in the days of CDs or cassette tapes, and your favorite singer would come out with a boxed CD/Tape and one of the CDs/tapes would be full of demos, deep cuts, or other special recordings and that would be so exciting because it was stuff that was new from a person or band that you thought you owned or heard everything they ever came out with, kwim?

Attending this concert and hearing them sing something totally unexpected would then be something I couldn't experience outside of this event, which might be a similar type of excitement as those bonus tracks.

But outside of die-hard fans, I can definitely see where others would be disappointed, especially if this was there first time attending one of his shows.

Not a fan of his music, but we watched Stagecoach via streaming and saw most of his performance. The majority of what we saw were religious songs/covers. He didn't address the crowd once and wore sunglasses - so it was a total disconnect from the crowd. It was just one song after another. After an hour (?) we turned it off. I was bored and I know DW was disappointed by his performance (she's the one who likes country music).

I've never heard of this particular singer. If I think about going to see a singer whom I knew and liked, and they played something other than their own songs that I most likely went to hear, then I would be pretty disappointed.

DSO is a huge Steve Earl fan. We saw him here a few years ago, at an outdoor gig with other several artists. He started off his set with 'Copperhead Road', then said to the crowd something like "Right, you've heard it now, if that's the only song of mine that you know, you can fuck off now!" It was hilarious.

OMG  - I just logged in to post my response and decided to do so without reading the other responses first (I know a little controversial…but it always gets me bogged down and trying to write too much.  😉 ) but my reply was under yours and I saw the name Steve Earle and had to read it.  Hahaha.  

One of my stories is about Steve Earle. I am also a huge Steve Earle fan from way way back and have seen him numerous times. I will admit you never know what you are going to get with him which I kind of like. 😆

So my actual answer is my typical I can see both sides…noncommittal reply.  I have seen a lot of live music, some great and some so so.  I try never to have expectations because then you are sure to be disappointed.  I try to go and enjoy what I get.  I consider it something I like to do and it is entertainment. I would never leave a concert (or movie early) - I paid to see a show, and whether I love it or not is all part of the experience.  The only one I have ever left early (and it wasn’t my choice) was a Steve Earle show.

Yes I would love to hear old favorites, but sometimes new things or spins on old music is the biggest surprise and the best parts of shows.  And then there are long lasting artist (I.e. Buffett, Springsteen, etc) who have so many beloved songs that they can’t always do them all.  So someone is always disappointed because their favorite is not included.  I would be a bit sad if all the times that I saw Jimmy Buffett he didn’t play A Pirate Looks at Forty - one of my most favorite songs of his.

I still complain about one of the times I saw Little Feat and they didn’t play Willin’.  And that was years ago. 😆🤷🏻‍♀️

So I am very wish washy on this and I would prefer some of each.  However, I would appreciate a heads-up by how it is advertised or presented if the entire show is going to be something totally different than what that artist is known for. 

I wouldn't be happy to pay $600 to listen to someone sing cover versions of other people's songs. I hate cover versions when I hear them for free so I probably would have walked out too.

I love Eric Church.
There are many artists who will tell you that they get tired of playing the same things over and over again.
An article I read said he had performed earlier in the day at another venue and wanted to do something different.
I love Ricky Nelson song Garden Party for this exact example of how artists are treated most of the time.
I have seen Rick Springfield many times and over the past 10 years he will sing his hits but they are drastically different versions because he gets bored performing the same things the same way day in day out.

I think it all depends on how it was done and if you like the songs.

It sounds like Church came out, sang songs, and left (to the person who commented that he wore sunglasses; he always does). It didn’t sound like it was a very fun show.

But contrast to that, Post Malone played Stagecoach and sang (I think) all country covers. He brought out other artists, he danced like crazy, and he made it a SHOW. I would have loved to watch that, even if I missed out on my favorite songs of his.

I can compare this to two country artists I saw within a year of each other. John Michael Montgomery came out, stood behind his microphone, and sang his songs. Maybe swayed back and forth a few times. I loved him at the time; we used his songs as our first dance and as the bridal party dance. It was the most boring show I had ever been to.

I saw George Strait that same year. He came out, stood behind his microphone, and sang his songs. He did sway a bit. But he was charismatic. He engaged the crowd; he smiled and looked like he was having a good time.

If you put videos side by side without sound those two entertainers from that year would have looked very similar. But one concert sucked and the other was fantastic.

I will admit that it makes me nervous; our company show this year is Eric Church and it’s always a drink induced good time. If he does this it will be disappointing, even if it was a free to me show.

We also watched the Post Malone set on streaming, anticipating that it going to be PM karaoke and was dismissive of it prior to. I fully admitted to DW I was wrong "I'm eating my words!". The PM set was great. A lot of fun to watch. I really enjoyed it. And it was all the things the EC set wasn't - engaging, room/breaks for talking to the audience and to receive feedback from them, too.

Interesting that you brought up Post Malone on this thread's topic. He doesn't have country songs but sang country covers, some were duets with the artists. I thought it was great, Three Wooden Crosses was especially wonderful.

People, assumably, knew he wasn't going to sing his songs yet they went to his show and I haven't heard any complaints about Post Malone's versus the complaints about Eric Church.

Keep in mind this is the same artist who screwed his fans a few years ago and cancelled a show to go watch the Final Four. I guess on the plus side at least he showed up and played for the fans who made the effort to be there. He has some songs I have liked over the years, but I would also put him on the douchebag list.