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Erik Church set the record with his Stagecoach performance on Friday, April 26, which drew mixed reactions from the audience. The 46-year-old country singer admitted he had a different performance style in mind than the audience seemed to have expected, but he stuck by his decision to perform a stripped-down, gospel-inspired set at the country music festival.
During his headlining set, Eric performed a number of songs, including covers of Leonard Cohen“Hallelujah”, a few hymns, soul songs like “Stand By Me” and “People Get Ready” and rap covers like “California Love” by Tupac and “Gin and Juice” by Snoop Dogg. He was accompanied by a choir and performed in front of a stained glass backdrop. He also played stripped down versions of his own songs, but his own band joined him at the end of his set and closed with his classic “Springsteen.”
While some people enjoyed the country star switching up his usual performance, the unexpected appearance encouraged some fans to break up and abandon his performance. A fan filmed It seemed like droves of people were leaving the show. “We paid $600 to see a headline about people leaving en masse,” they wrote. “He didn’t get up from his chair and most of the songs are covers with the choir. That’s not what we came for.”
In response to the criticism, Eric released a statement standing by his decision and citing other influences including: Bruce Springsteen, Willie NelsonAnd Bob Seger. “That was the most difficult set I’ve ever attempted. I’ve always found that if you take it back to where it started, back to chasing who Bob Seger loves, who Springsteen loves, who Willie Nelson loves, you’re chasing it back to the source. The origin of everything is still the purest form of it. And we don’t do that as much anymore. “It felt good at that moment to go back and start a choir and do that,” he said via Diversity.
He continued, showing that he was proud to take a risk that was more in line with what a newer artist would do. “For me it was always something with records, with performances, I was always the one who thought, ‘Let’s do something really, really weird and crazy and take a risk.’ Sometimes it doesn’t work, but it’s okay to live on that edge, because that edge, that edge, is where all new people gravitate towards anyway. So if you can always challenge yourself in that way, it always cuts sharper than any other edge,” he said.
Meanwhile, Eric made one last guest appearance Morgan WallenThe headline was set on Sunday, April 28th. The duo performed Morgan’s song “Man Made a Bar.”