Zach Bryan Electrifies Little Rock's Simmons Bank Arena on Night One of a Two-Night Stand

by Julian Spivey

Bree Archer Photo

​Zach Bryan electrified the sold-out crowd at the Simmons Bank Arena in Little Rock, Ark. on Monday, May 13 on night one of his two-night stand at the venue on his Quittin’ Time tour.

Bryan has seen a meteoric rise in the music industry over the last half decade made especially unique by the fact that he doesn’t really get any mainstream airplay in the genre his music is most familiar with – country music. He’s truly been a DIY success story going from uploading videos on YouTube and recording his own albums in a rented Airbnb to an artist capable of selling out multiple nights at big arenas in cities across the country. In all my years going to shows and listening to music I’ve never seen a rags-to-riches success story happen this quickly and I’m not sure I completely understand it.
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Bryan has a down-to-earth personality that seems to speak to his loyal and massive following and his songwriting speaks to the ills and issues of a life lived hard in the heartland without dumbing it down to the level you’d hear on mainstream country radio.

In his song “Highway Boys,” he sings: “this sound I got is mine, man” and it’s a line that early on upon hearing the song it kinda made me roll my eyes a bit with its audacity. But after seeing his legions of fans connected to his music on Monday night I can tell he’s certainly hit upon something that few artists today, especially outside of the “mainstream,” have found.

Monday’s show was a bit unique for me as a concertgoer. I like Bryan. But this crowd at his shows LOVES him. The closest thing I’ve ever really seen to it in all my years of attending concerts is Bruce Springsteen’s following.

Bryan began his set a little after 9 p.m. with “Overtime” from his self-titled 2023 album. The crowd erupted right off the bat and never calmed down for the entire two-hour, 24-song set. The upper bowl of the arena was literally moving below our feet, which was something of a disconcerting feeling.

He performed the show in the round moving from mic to mic set up in four locations on the stage in the middle of the arena floor. In the round isn’t my favorite staging setup for a concert but it’s not as rough with Bryan as in past acts I’ve seen use this format because he goes from mic to mic rapidly, sometimes hitting all four spots during the performance of one song.

Bryan performed seven songs from the newest album on the night, including “Tourniquet,” “Smaller Acts” and “Hey Driver.” “Hey Driver” is one of my favorite tracks on the album but it does lose a little something live without the soulful sounds of Michael and Tanya Trotter of The War and Treaty throughout. I was thrilled to hear his first career Billboard Hot 100 No. 1 “I Remember Everything,” one of the album’s highlights because I didn’t think we’d get the song since it’s a duet, but Bryan aptly handled it all solo.  

My favorite performance from the newest album on Monday night was “East Side of Sorrow,” which has a stellar chorus and a terrific tribute nod to Turnpike Troubadours, one of my favorite bands and clearly an inspiration for Bryan.

Bryan’s output of music over the last few years has been insane. He released a double album American Heartbreak in 2022, the self-titled album last year and two EPs over the last two years and already has a new album ready to come out sometime between now and the end of the year, of which he performed two new songs from on Monday night: “The Great American Bar Scene” and “28.”

I can’t give my opinion on those new songs as sometimes an arena show isn’t conducive to making out all of a new song’s lyrics.

Bryan performed five songs from American Heartbreak on Monday, including two of my favorite performances in “Oklahoma City” and “Open the Gate,” a terrific rodeo song.

Other highlights of the show included “Oklahoma Smokeshow,” “Heading South” and “Nine Ball.”

Bryan ended his set with the title song to his current tour, “Quittin’ Time,” a song that should be a country hit if radio would dare to play him, but you know you have to “play the game” to get country music airplay and Bryan doesn’t seem to play anyone’s game but his own.

Bryan returned for an epic – mostly in length, not necessarily in performance – encore of “Revival” in which he introduced his talented bandmates between repeated choruses. Listen, the song itself is awesome. The chorus is killer. I appreciate the namedrops of Merle Haggard and Johnny Cash, both personal heroes of mine. But damn it seemed to go on forever and, well, I have a thing about repeating choruses too much.

The audience loved this extended version of “Revival,” which seems to have become a staple at Bryan’s live shows. I would’ve been a bit happier with another song or two in the encore, perhaps my favorite “Something in the Orange,” which unfortunately didn’t make the cut on Monday night.

Bryan’s show on Monday was a fun night filled with great songs and a ridiculously “on” crowd. If you have the chance to see him perform live don’t pass it up.