Well, not exactly a free show, but he spent a couple of hours in front of the Bridgestone Arena on Monday, June 4th rehearsing his performance of “Drink in My Hand” that aired during the CMT Awards on Wednesday, June 6th. As the band struck up the opening chords of the song to go through it without the vocals, a few fans that were walking around in downtown Nashville came over to see what was going on.
Eric Church – Photo by Mike Carroll
After a bit of a wait, sure enough the man himself Eric Church stepped out on the stage to go through the song! Once his voice was heard over the speakers, folks came flooding out of the bars to the barricades surrounding the stage area so that their eyes could confirm what they’re ears were telling them. While it was cool to see, it was a bit tedious, as they’d perform the song, then take a 10-20 minute break to go over the lightning, sound, and other technical elements before running through it again. A few lucky fans were brought inside the barricades to stand right up against the stage so they could do a test run with the CMT TV cameras! The other surprising part of this impromptu show was that Eric Church came out relatively clean-shaven and with no sunglasses on! All-in-all, it was a lot of standing around and waiting to see him sing the same song over and over again, but it was a really cool experience that made the night of hundreds of fans who were lucky enough to stumble upon the free show.
Photo by Mike Carroll