Concert review: Eric Church turns in memorable stadium debut, while Morgan Wallen is best forgotten

Country star Eric Church played his biggest Twin Cities concert yet Saturday night when he headlined U.S. Bank Stadium in front of a sold-out crowd equal in number to about three nights at Church’s usual haunt across downtown Minneapolis at Target Center.

Yet for many in the boozy crowd, it was a Morgan Wallen concert followed by an Eric Church concert. Nearly every seat was filled for Wallen’s 90-minute performance, a rare sight for any stadium concert.

Wallen, of course, is notorious for a run of bad behavior that culminated in February 2021, when TMZ released a video of Wallen using a racial slur just days earlier. In response, radio and streaming services pulled his music, while his label suspended (temporarily as it turns out) his contract.

His fans, however, apparently didn’t care. Wallen’s album sales increased after the incident and his sophomore effort “Dangerous: The Double Album” spent a record-breaking 10 weeks at No. 1 on the Billboard charts. Wallen took a break from his own currently ongoing headlining tour to play this one-off Church show.

The thing about about the 29-year-old Wallen is that he’s a heck of a songwriter. He’s got a knack for hooks and crafting songs so catchy they sound familiar the first time you hear them. And I’d like to think it was the songs the crowd were cheering, not Wallen himself.

That’s because the other thing about Wallen is that he’s not much of a performer. He showed little charisma Saturday night and offered a flat performance with some occasionally awful vocals. (The kid is going to lose his voice if he doesn’t hire someone to teach him how to sing live.)

Wallen did best with his slower numbers like “7 Summers” and “Sand in My Boots,” which he performed from behind a piano. “Flower Shops,” a duet with opening act Ernest, wasn’t bad, either. But Wallen’s got a lot of work to do if he doesn’t want to easily be outshined by any number of his peers.

Not that Church is Wallen’s peer — his career started taking off a dozen years ago and he hasn’t peaked yet — but Wallen would learn a lot by watching a few Church shows.

Early on, the 45-year-old Church explained this was a special show just for Minneapolis, one of his strongest markets. Indeed, his recently wrapped tour didn’t include a local stop, which he noted from the stage. (He played another one-off stadium show last month in Milwaukee and is hitting the festival circuit this summer.)

While Church has always been a wildly entertaining live performer, he felt both more relaxed and focused than usual Saturday as he tore through a hit-heavy set list that still found room for a few tracks from his 2021 triple album “Heart and Soul.”

After opening with a raucous run through “The Outsiders,” a grinning Church promised the crowd “it’s going to be one hell of a night.” And, for the most part, it was thanks to smart pacing and energy to burn, not just from Church but from his entire band, including his backup singer Joanna Cotton.

Church downed an airplane-sized bottle of whiskey during “Drink in My Hand,” and talked about playing an eye-opening show at the Cabooze early in his career as in introduction to his 2006 debut single “How ‘Bout You.” He opened several songs with lengthy runs on acoustic guitar, including his 2010 breakthrough single “Smoke a Little Smoke” that fell halfway through the show but felt like an encore. It’ll be a tough night for Church to top.