FLORENCE — When it comes to great finishes, Country Thunder has shown in recent years that it's got a knack for putting the most electrified finishing touches on its four-day country music festival here.
On Sunday night, it enlisted one of Nashville's most energetic entertainers to do the job, and Eric Church delivered.
We got him champing at the bit for a live audience, and he got us primed to send off Country Thunder 2016 with a bang.
Nevermind that rain tried to wreck havoc on the last day Sunday, leaving in its wake a muddy, slippery, soggy mess. That didn't stop the tens of thousands filling the Country Thunder West festival lawn Sunday night. If Church was looking for a party, he found one with the thousands of folks in the lawn bunched up in a knot around the fenced in reserved-seating area, and in the reserved spot, where fans tussled for the stagefront spots and squeezed into every spot along the catwalk.
It would be easy to throw down a setlist — a rundown of his greatest hits from "Talladega" and "Homeboy" to "Smoke A Little Smoke," 'Springsteen" and "Creepin'" — and let that testify to the merits of Church's show. But there is so much more to the award-winning country singer than simply a rundown of what he sang.
It's the way he sang them, with heart and soul, naturally, but also with the confidence that comes when he knew the only person he really had to impress was himself. We were going to be impressed just to hear him perform his new song "Mr. Misunderstood" for one of the first times live; he won't tour on the months-old album of the same name until 2017 so Country Thunder got a rare treat.
Church, who headlined Country Thunder three years ago, embodies the kind of stage enthusiasm you expect from a newbie getting their first taste on the big stage, not from a road warrior who's been out there a decade. He treated even the simplest gestures — the screaming audience members, the little kid's boot thrust in his hand when he sang "These Boots," the resounding chorus that echoed off the hills circling the festival grounds when the audience sang the refrain from "Give Me Back My Hometown" — like first-time memorable moments.
Most of all, Eric Church, singing in a nasal-tinged, subtly twangy baritone, was having fun, and that emotion was not lost on anyone on the final day of Country Thunder. He sprinted the catwalk, smacked outstreached hands and signed a few autographs including that little boot. And he wore a smile throughout his 90-minute show.
HIs biggest smile came when he paid a quiet, unceremonious tribute to the late Merle Haggard, singing his tribute "Pledge Allegiance to the Hag." He offered no words of condolence, no explanation of Haggard's death last Wednesday. He just sang his song with the same reverence he had when he first recorded as a bright-eyed, doing-it-my-way newbie 10 years ago.
