Luke Combs' first night of back-to-back sellouts at Resch was a beer-soaked, hit-filled, 'Go Pack Go' good time

ASHWAUBENON - If the Green Bay Packers hit the field on Sunday night with the intensity and urgency Luke Combs did on Friday night at the Resch Center, look out, Chicago Bears.

The Country Music Association’s reigning Entertainer of the Year got the party started for Packers-Bears home opener weekend just like you would want him to, by drop kicking a red Solo cup full of beer deep into a sold-out crowd, followed by a massive celebratory fist pump for nailing it.

A lot of beer got spilled, onstage and off, for the first of Combs’ back-to-back nights on his The Middle of Somewhere Tour. That will come as a shock to no one.

“Who’s having a drink in here with me tonight?” he asked after working up a sweat from the first fired-up song out of the gate, “Cold As You.” “It’s Green Bay, Wisconsin. I know you’re having a drink with me."

That was the cue for rowdy beer ode “1, 2 Many,” with Combs making good on the lyrics: “And the night’s still young. So what you say we shotgun one.” Blink and you missed him draining a can of Miller Lite two songs in — the prolific singer-songwriter’s other talent.

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Sure, the beer references were plentiful, but a Combs concert is anything but all foam. He has one of the biggest, most authentic voices in all of country music and a career that keeps rolling at breakneck speed. It’s been one colossal hit after another since the appropriately named “Hurricane” landed him at the top of the country charts in 2017 and at countless awards show podiums since.

If he felt like an artist on the way up when he played the Resch Center in 2019, he proved Friday he’s sitting comfortably on top of the country music heap, and deservedly so.

What’s perhaps most remarkable about that is it was still the same Luke Combs. Unchanged despite the climb.

Still just an earnest, what-you-see-is-what-you-get guy in a cap and black Columbia PFG fishing shirt who looks like he could be the tailgater grilling brats next to you in the Lambeau Field lot on Sunday. And oh by the way, he’ll play 16 countries on three continents next year on a world tour.

Regardless of the prestige, he's keeping tickets on this tour what they were on his last pre-pandemic circuit, despite an industry that has seen concert prices skyrocket with inflation. The top ticket price for his Resch shows maxed out at $85 — what would be considered a “cheap seat” starting point for most touring acts now.

“Not to get too deep on you, but listen, I’m 32 years old, and in a lot of ways I still feel like a kid. I never would have imagined that me playing guitar and singing would ever become anything even close to what this is,” he said, one of several times he addressed the crowd about how grateful he is. “... I'm proud as hell.”

He makes a point each night to play a song onstage by himself. It's a reminder, he says, it always comes down to somebody somewhere wanting to hear music he wrote, whether a handful of listeners in chicken wing joint in the early days or two Resch Center concerts that sold out in roughly an hour. On Friday, that song was “Five-Leaf Clover.”

It was the rare less-familiar title in a 100-minute set that was all hits, from sing-along favorites like “When It Rains It Pours” and his rollicking cover of Brooks & Dunn’s “Brand New Man” to the love songs that carry equal weight in his catalog and reveal the soft, sweet center of an artist who belts about largemouth bass and the Shell on I-65. None was more lovely than “Beautiful Crazy.”

He tapped a medley of classic country songs by other artists to showcase and introduce each of the seven members of his band (always a sign of how gracious an artist is), and he slowed things down with the poignant father-son tear-jerker “Even Though I’m Leaving.”

He did them all on a giant square stage in the round, making sure the crowds at each corner got equal time, sloshing whatever was in his red Solo cup as he patted bandmates on the back and leaned down to acknowledge fans in the pit.

One of them was a young boy who handed him a note he read onstage. It was his first concert, it said, and he was three years post-pulmonary transplant. He wondered if Combs would wear his bracelet.

“We’re gonna be friends after the show,” Combs told him after putting it on and handing the note back to him.

A North Carolina native, Combs also outed himself as “a lowly Carolina Panthers fan,” which drew the standard Green Bay boos.

"Hold on a sec. I’m acknowledging the greatness of your team. OK? Now if I say it, are you all gonna do it?” Combs asked, before launching the crowd in a round of “Go Pack Go."

Packers quarterback Aaron Rodgers, had hinted earlier in the week on “The Pat McAfee Show” he might be going to Friday’s show. A video shared by WFRV-TV sports reporter Kyle Malzhan on Twitter shows what looks to be him in a suite during the "Go Pack Go" breakout.

Here's betting the ferocity with which Combs leaned into “Beer Never Broke My Heart” to close out the night blew back that new haircut of his — and blew away everyone in the arena.

The setlist

“Cold As You”

“1, 2 Many”

“When It Rains It Pours”

“Must’ve Never Met You”

“The Kind of Love We Make”

“One Number Away”

“Forever After All”

“Even Though I’m Leaving”

“Better Together”

“Five-Leaf Clover”

“Going, Going, Gone”

“Houston, We Got a Problem”

“Two Dozen Roses”/“Chattahoochee”/“Ain’t Goin’ Down (’Til the Sun Comes Up)"

“She Got the Best of Me”

“Lovin’ on You”

“Brand New Man” 

“Beautiful Crazy”

“Hurricane”

“Doin’ This” (encore)

“Beer Never Broke My Heart” (encore)

A few words about Jordan Davis

In the days leading up to Friday’s concert, opener Jordan Davis teased on TikTok a new song called “Midnight Crisis” with an unnamed female artist who he said would be revealed at the show. It was former “The Voice” winner Danielle Bradbery, dressed in head-to-toe shimmer, who joined him for his first live performance of the song.

Fans were still filing in during Morgan Wade’s short set to open the night, the depth of her lyrics sometimes swallowed up by the booming volume of arena sound, but they made sure to be there for everything Davis had to offer. He quickly commanded the attention of the crowd for a 45-minute performance through slick pop-country hits like “Take It From Me” and “Buy Dirt," but it was the pipes he put into “Detours” that suggest he’s destined for an arena stage of his own.

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Contact Kendra Meinert at 920-431-8347 or kmeinert@greenbay.gannett.com. Follow her on Twitter @KendraMeinert. 

This article originally appeared on Green Bay Press-Gazette: Luke Combs fires up sold-out Resch Center crowd with beer-soaked party