by Julian Spivey
Eric Church blew the doors clean off of Verizon Arena in North Little Rock on Thursday night with his Blood, Sweat and Beers tour proving that at the current moment he’s at the top of the game when it comes to the country music genre.
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Church told the audience toward the very beginning of his set that he’d give every ounce of everything he had that night as long as the audience repaid the favor. They did and he held true to his word leaving everything out on the stage.

Church kicked his set off with a fitting performance of “Country Music Jesus” from his Country Music Association Album of the Year “Chief”. Church is one of the few country artists out there today effectively serving as a potential savior of real and true country music.

By the end of his set Church would have played all 11 tracks from the critically-acclaimed and fan-favorite album, the third studio album of his career.

Among Church’s biggest hits of the night were “Homeboy” and “Drink in My Hand”, the first two singles off of “Chief”, as well as “Guys Like Me”, “How ‘Bout You” and “Hell on the Heart” from previous albums. His current radio single “Creepin’” also proved to be one of the many highlights of the night.

In my opinion, the best performances of the show were when Church slowed things down quite a bit, gave his immensely talented band a breather and just played “Sinners Like Me” and “Love Your Love the Most” (two of my three favorite Church songs) back-to-back just him and his guitar. Church also gave an emotional and very moving performance of “Like Jesus Does”, which includes one of the all-time great country music opening lines in, “I’m a long gone Waylon song on vinyl”.

After “Homeboy” finished up Church’s regular set, he quickly returned to the stage for a powerful encore that included a rip-roaring performance of “Smoke a Little Smoke”, with great accompaniment from a smoke machine that filled the entire arena in a haze. Church then somewhat surprised the audience with a terrific performance of “These Boots,” from his 2006 debut album “Sinners Like Me”, that had all of the boot wearers in the audience taking off one of their boots and hoisting them high in the air.

Church saved his finest performance of the night for his very last when he performed one of the crowd favorites “Springsteen”, a song that was nominated for two Grammy Awards the night before. You can tell that “Springsteen” is a very dear song to Church and he dedicated it to the entire audience saying that he hopes when they hear the song years down the road that they’ll remember that very night. With Bruce Springsteen being my all-time favorite artist and Church adapting an incredible verse of Springsteen’s classic “Born to Run” into the song mid-performance it makes for one of those all-time incredible concert moments for me personally and will be something I assuredly will remember for years to come.  

Opening the night for Church was the up-and-coming Kip Moore who appears as if he could become the real deal in a time where there aren’t too many of those in country music. Kip Moore already has already had two great songs this year with the uniquely written “Somethin’ ‘Bout a Truck”, one of the better country songs of 2012, and the just plain fun “Beer Money”. Following Kip Moore was the Arkansas native Justin Moore (no relation) with a set that proved to be pleasing for the local audience, but was merely stereotypical and almost laugh inducingly bad for me, especially when he is singing songs about kicking people’s asses when he’s a little twerp-looking man wearing a cowboy hat about two sizes too big.

by Julian Spivey
North Little Rock’s Verizon Arena turned into Margaritaville for a few hours Thursday night [March 1] as more than 16,000 Arkansas Parrotheads turned out to party with Jimmy Buffett and the Coral Reefer Band.
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Thursday night’s concert was Buffett’s first at Verizon Arena and incredibly his first performance in Arkansas in around 40 years. The North Little Rock stop was the seventh on Buffett’s Fin Land Tour. 

Buffett’s fanbase is easily one of the most loyal in all of music, which makes his concerts more than just a concert. Buffett’s concerts are a daylong event as many Parrotheads began tailgating early in the morning all the way up until the arena lights went down.

There were many highlights from Buffett’s set, including the performance of every one of Buffett’s seven concert staple songs: “Margaritaville,” “Come Monday,” “Fins,” “Volcano,” “A Pirate Looks at Forty,” “Cheeseburger in Paradise” and “Changes in Latitudes, Changes in Attitudes.” Among these, the biggest ovation from the audience came rather surprisingly during his performance of “Cheeseburger in Paradise,” which is a fun novelty song, but not much more than that.

“Margaritaville,” the song that Buffett is most known for, drew a big reaction from the 16,000-plus in the audience as Buffett sang the “not-so-lost-verse” that wasn’t recorded on the 1977 recording, but is frequently performed in concert.

One of the coolest things from the roughly two-and-a-half hour show was when Buffett and his bandmate Mac McAnally, a four-time CMA Award Musician of the Year winner and inductee of the Nashville Songwriters Hall of Fame (along with Buffett), performed “A Pirate Looks at Forty” with almost the entire arena singing along in unison.

A personal favorite performance from the show was Buffett’s performance of his first top 40 Billboard hit “Come Monday,” which I consider to be his finest and most beautifully written song.

Buffett kicked off the raucous concert with “Piece of Work,” a duet that he recorded with country music superstar Toby Keith for Buffett’s 2004 album “License to Chill,” he’d perform that album’s title track next.

Other highlights throughout the concert included some of Buffett’s newer music like “It’s Five O’Clock Somewhere,” a number one country music hit with Alan Jackson from 2003, (with McAnally doing many of Jackson’s parts), “Knee Deep,” a 2011 hit that Buffett recorded with the Zac Brown Band and “Bama Breeze,” from Buffett’s 2006 album “Take the Weather with You.”

Buffett and the Coral Reefers also pleased longtime fans with performances of oldies like “Pencil Thin Mustache,” “Grapefruit-Juicy Fruit,” “One Particular Harbour” and “Last Mango in Paris.”

Buffett ended his set with a terrific cover of Crosby, Stills and Nash’s “Southern Cross,” which he frequently performs and has previously recorded.

Uproarious and raving cheers from the crowd brought Buffett out for an encore of “Fins,” which had everybody on their feet doing the “fins to the left, fins to the right” wave, and a great cover of Van Morrison’s 1967 rock classic “Brown Eyed Girl,” which is another frequent cover of his.

Following the encore the Coral Reefer Band took their leave and Buffett serenaded the crowd one final time with an acoustic performance of “Lovely Cruise,” the most fitting way he possibly could have ended the show.

It was a night that the Verizon crowd surely won’t be forgetting anytime soon and judging by Buffett’s appreciation and candor I don’t think it’s going to be long before Arkansas sees the son of a son of a sailor again.