If you’ve never seen Luke Combs in concert, you may be wondering how this unassuming figure has become the first country music performer to play two consecutive nights at State Farm Stadium in Glendale, Arizona.
Only Taylor Swift and Metallica have managed two nights on the same tour in that room, which has held more than 70,000 people on its best days, from two Super Bowls to Garth Brooks (who drew 77,653 people but only played one night).
It doesn’t hurt that Combs, at 34, has topped the Billboard Country Airplay charts with 16 hits, from “Hurricane” (not the one Bob Dylan sang) to “Fast Car,” a Tracy Chapman cover that led to what he told the crowd at State Farm Stadium may be his proudest moment: performing the song at the 2024 Grammy Awards with the woman who wrote it.
Combs did all but three of his chart-topping singles on Friday, May 31. And he hit those other three on Saturday.
Luke Combs setlist:'Fast Car' and every song he played at State Farm Stadium in Glendale on Night 1
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It’s doubtful Combs will ever be the world’s most magnetic — or electrifying — entertainer.
That just isn't who he is or what he brings to the equation.
He does offer something at least as compelling as showmanship, though. And that’s sincerity. You could feel how much he felt those songs as he was singing them, which made the love songs more romantic and the poignant songs more poignant.
Did it make the drinking songs more drunk? That's hard to say when you're not drinking, but I'm thinking almost certainly.
Luke Combs concert shows he's the king of the country love song
As Combs admitted in the course of dedicating three songs to his wife, who happened to be in attendance at the stadium, he does a lot of love songs.
And he does them well — in a way that clearly resonates with his adoring public.
You could see that in the couples staring lovingly into each other’s eyes while singing his songs at what seemed to be full volume in each other's faces, a scene that played out many times on the video screens as Combs performed.
Having several love songs people want to sing into each other’s faces is a rare commodity, as Lionel Richie can attest.
Which brings us to the singing.
Combs is blessed with a distinctive voice that telegraphs emotion in a gritty rasp that makes the most of every lyric, from his own songs, the best of which thrive on emotion, to the soulful waltz he took through an Ed Sheeran track called “Dive” and, obviously, Chapman’s “Fast Car.”
There are those who may not care for the distinctive nature of his voice, as there are those who do not care for the distinctive nature of what Joni Mitchell or Bob Dylan do.
But State Farm Stadium was packed with those who understand exactly what it is that makes him such a brilliant vocalist. And Combs was playing to those people with total conviction in his increasingly sweaty Arizona Cardinals baseball cap, wiggling his fingers as though it somehow helped him navigate those melodies.
The sincerity he brings to singing also came through in the monologues he sprinkled through the concert as he talked about his wife and kids and hopes and dreams and never having stepped a single foot outside North Carolina until he'd finished college.
How Luke Combs sang 'Fast Car' with Tracy Chapman at the Grammys
The way he set up “Fast Car” was a master class in how this entertainment thing is done (or should be done), a heartfelt remembrance of learning to play the guitar his parents bought him as a kid but not until he'd gone away to college, eventually mastering the chords to Chapman’s song.
“That was one of my favorite songs in the whole world and one of the first songs I remember hearing,” he said.
He was 4 when he decided "Fast Car" was his jam.
“And all these years later, I got to stand on the stage at the Grammys with Miss Tracy Chapman,” he said, as the crowd went wild. “One of the proudest moments of my career, if not the proudest moment. So, if you guys want to help me sing my favorite song….”
The fact that that’s his favorite song speaks volumes to the kind of artist Combs aspires to be.
Luke Combs concert highlights included 'Where the Wild Things Are,' 'Beer Never Broke My Heart'
In the meantime, he’s proven he already knows exactly what it takes to write a love song that has couples kissing as he sings (“They say nothing lasts forever but they ain't seen us together or the way the moonlight dances in your eyes/ Just a T-shirt in the kitchen with no make-up and a million other things that I could look at my whole life.")
And his drinking songs are everything a country drinking song should be, especially the song that closed his set, “Beer Never Broke My Heart.”
“Longneck ice-cold beer never broke my heart,” he sang. “Like diamond rings and football teams have torn this boy apart.”
Regardless of the subject matter (true love, drinking, fast cars, losing a brother to the California lifestyle in the deeply moving "Where the Wild Things Are"), thousands of people sang along because he made them see themselves in every line. That’s the sort of talent knuckleheads who think this music game is all about proficiency and flash will never understand.
That’s why Combs is playing stadiums and they’re home talking trash on social media.
The Wilder Blue opened for Luke Combs with the national anthem
The Wilder Blue strolled onstage as the first of four opening acts and set the tone with a simple request.
“Will you please stand and remove your hats for the national anthem?”
What followed was a really pretty version that played to their strengths as a harmony group, if not as spectacularly as the song they said they dusted off to see what strengths they had when they first got together — “Seven Bridges Road,” a Steve Young song most commonly associated with the Eagles.
That vocal blend continued to impress as they brought their set to a crowd-pleasing finish with “Wave Dancer” and “The Ghost of Lincoln.”
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Hailey Whitters as charming as ever opening for Luke Combs
In the interest of full disclosure, I love Hailey Whitters.
She was two songs deep in her performance as the second opening act for Luke Combs when she told the crowd “I’m so happy, I’m pinching myself”.”
Of course she was.
This is Whitters’ first stadium tour and she is clearly thrilled to find herself on such a major bill, which only added to the charm of a set whose highlights ranged from “Tie’r Down” (“She might tie the knot but you can’t tie'r down”) to “I’m in Love” (“He's in a T-shirt, all cleaned up/ Good lord almighty, Mama, don't wait up”).
She also turned in a spirited cover of the Dolly Parton classic “Jolene” (aka that song Beyonce did) and signed off with a crowd-pleasing romp through her own “Everything She Ain’t,” her first platinum single.
Luke Combs opener #3: Charles Wesley Godwin reps West Virginia roots
The concert’s third act, Charles Wesley Godwin, came out rocking in a Luke Combs T-shirt and a red-and-white bandana, leading his band in a headbanging version of “Cue Country Roads,” a southern rock anthem whose chorus pleads, “Come on and take me home.”
And he ended the set by cueing up that old John Denver hit himself, leading the crowd in a joyous singalong on “Take Me Home, Country Roads,” a song he introduced with “Only one way for a West Virginia boy to finish a set.”
That West Virginia vibe was duly reinforced by a coal-mining song he sent out to his dad and a lead guitarist repping Western Pennsylvania rockers G-Force on his vintage black-and-gold T-shirt.
Godwin is an energetic bandleader who’s surrounded himself with a stage full of musicians more than capable of giving each song what it needed, from the country rockers to the country ballads to John Denver’s most enduring pop hit.
Luke Combs opener #4: Cody Jinks reps the Arizona Cardinals
Cody Jinks hit the stage as the main support for Combs in an Arizona Cardinals jersey (No. 24) and reminisced about his introduction to the Phoenix market, playing Crescent Ballroom on a tour with kindred spirit Whitey Morgan.
Rocking a ZZ Top-worthy beard, a feathered hat and Elvis shades, he led his bandmates in a gritty Southern rock revival, complete with dual guitar harmonies.
Setting the tone with “Fast Hand,” a song on which the singer claims he never meant to be a bad man, they packed their set with highlights — “Ain’t a Train,” “I’m Not the Devil,” “Outlaws and Mustangs” and a defiant performance of “Hippies and Cowboys,” which felt like it could be a bit of a signature song for Jinks.
“I've never been a part of any musical scene,” he sang. “I ain't just talking Nashville, if you know what I mean/ They don't write about me in their magazines/ And I don't ask for no reviews on the songs that I sing.”
Fair enough, you bearded outlaw.
Having said that, my review of your performance, which you did not ask for? Just keep doing what you’re doing. You’re already rocking stadiums in Elvis shades as main support to Mr. I Can Do Two Nights In Rooms This Size without a single hit that anyone would recognize (although “Must Be the Whiskey” has somehow gone platinum).
Luke Combs tour setlist 2024: All the songs he played in Glendale concert on night 1
Here is every song Luke Combs sang at State Farm Stadium in Glendale, Arizona, on Friday, May 31.
- "Must've Never Met You"
- "She Got the Best of Me"
- "Lovin' on You"
- "My Kinda Folk"
- "Brand New Man"(Brooks & Dunn cover)
- "One Number Away"
- "Houston, We Got a Problem"
- "The Man He Sees in Me" (acoustic)
- "This One's for You"(solo)
- "Going, Going, Gone"
- "Beer Can"(fan vote)
- "Dive"(Ed Sheeran cover)
- "Whose Bed Have Your Boots Been Under?"/ "Drops of Jupiter (Tell Me)" / "What Was I Thinkin’"
- (Band Introductions)
- "Where the Wild Things Are"
- "Love You Anyway"
- "Forever After All"
- "Beautiful Crazy"
- "Fast Car" (Tracy Chapman cover)
- "Hurricane"
- "Cold as You"
- "When It Rains It Pours"
- "1, 2 Many"
- "Beer Never Broke My Heart"
Encore:
- "Better Together"
- "The Kind of Love We Make"
Reach the reporter ated.masley@arizonarepublic.comor 602-444-4495. Follow him on X (formerly Twitter)@EdMasley.
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