Not sure how I’m going to top this.
Eric Church was at the iconic Red Rocks Amphitheatre last night in Colorado for the final show of his epic three-night run. And it was one that all 10,000 people in attendance won’t soon forget.
I’m still drying out from the monsoon that came during the show and seemed to hover over Red Rocks, and I’m running on about 4 hours of sleep after getting back to my hotel around 2 AM after Church walked off the stage well past midnight. But like most of the crowd, I was ready to stand there all night, as long as he kept playing.
Last night’s show was Eric Church vs. The Guitar, an acoustic performance that featured just Church, his guitar, and (from about midway through the show on), his longtime duet partner and powerhouse background vocalist Joanna Cotten. I’ll have a lot more to say about the show a little later, but for now we’re just going to talk about one song in particular.
After opening the show with a cover of Leonard Cohen’s “Hallelujah” and then performing his unreleased ode to life as an artist, “On The Road,” Church stopped to introduce a new song that he had written that day…and it turns out, it was inspired by a Whiskey Riff article.
I’ve been recapping each night’s shows here, and in my article on night two, I mentioned that it was a throwback show of sorts. It was just Eric and his original band, and at one point in the night Church himself even joked that he’d had an airplane bottle and was wearing an American flag scarf like the old days:
“2012 broke out in here real fast.”
I pointed out that for those who say they “miss the old Eric Church,” night two at Red Rocks was proof that he’s undeniably still the Chief. And apparently that got Eric’s attention.
You can probably imagine my shock when I was standing in the crowd as Church mentioned the inspiration for his new song:
“I read an article. I never read anything. And I read this article today, it’s a site I really like, and the article said, ‘Eric Church played Red Rocks last night, and the old Eric Church, the Chief was back. It was 2012 all over again.’
And I’m a songwriter. So I wrote this song today. Why not, right?”
Well by that point I was scrambling to pull out my phone from under my rain-soaked poncho, but he then performed the new song he wrote called “New Old Me.”
“Little bit older, little bit wiser
Little bit simpler, little more strong
Little more the man I wanna be
Little more grounded, little more guided
Little less reckless and open wide
Now when I pass the mirror I see
Same guy I used to know, but these days
I’m just a new old me”
Now I’m a little biased, but I’m going to say that we need Church to get this one in the studio.
“New Old Me”
And now, I’ve got the ultimate answer whenever somebody says “tell us a fun fact about yourself.”
