The opportunity to see one of the biggest stars in Country music in a relatively intimate venue is one not to be missed. The AFAS arena in Amsterdam has a capacity of 6,000 which, when you compare it against the behemoth stadiums and arenas that Luke Combs usually plays in these days, is still relatively intimate. So, a quick plane flight and a day or two in Amsterdam was the order of the day here and then it was Combs, 49 Winchester and even a songwriters round on the Saturday night to cap off a thoroughly enjoyable weekend.
Bringing Ray Fulcher, James McNair and Drew Parker to Europe with him was a terrific idea by Luke Combs’ team. It has to be said, however, that due to the odd queuing system at the AFAS arena, not everybody got the chance to see these guys do three songs each of their own and then round off the set with a medley of Luke Combs songs that they wrote that weren’t featuring in his main set. Doors didn’t open till 6.30pm and the songwriters came on at 7pm. There was only one door to enter the arena before it split into a few electronic entrances so the 6,000 people waiting to get in were in one, long snaky queue that seemed to go on for miles meaning if you didn’t get to arena by about 6pm you didn’t get to see Fulcher, McNair and Parker singing their songs. Drew Parker was probably the highlight of the set with the strongest voice but all three guys were skilled at what they do and it was a cool way to start the show.
49 Winchester, lead ably by lead singer & songwriter Isaac Gibson, played a tight 10 song set of what was, probably, their best songs. Gibson’s strong, Appalachian twang was set just right in the mix and the band sounded superb. Opening with a double whammy of ‘Chemistry’ and ‘Hays, Kansas’ Gibson and co brought a little bit of Virginia to Amsterdam with their rock-leaning rural sound. ‘Second Chance’ was anthemic but it was the set closing run of ‘Damn Darlin’, new song ‘I Think I Should Have Stayed in Tusla’ and ‘Last Call’ which really impressed. As the band continue to grow in stature they might need more songs like ‘Last Call’ in terms of being able to get arena-sized crowds moving as toes were definitely tapping during this song and hips were swaying all over. I would expect a huge spike in 49 Winchester’s Spotify analytics across Europe happening right now as the band continue to grow and enlarge their fan base thanks to this opportunity that they have grasped with two hands.
After a double-shot intro tape singalong of ‘Sweet Caroline’ and ACDC’s ‘Thunderstruck’ Luke Combs took the stage in his usual, casual yet confident way to ‘Lovin’ On You’. What was apparent, from the off, was that he and the band seem to be really enjoying themselves right now. Combs goes out of his way to give his band members their time in the limelight during solos and the mid-song medley of ‘Dust on the Bottle / Meet in the Middle / When I was Your Man gives various members of the band time to sing and play as Combs introduces them one by one, which is a really interesting and equitable thing to do.
Combs’ set was a mixture of hits, live classics and the odd album cut but he has now reached that unenviable point in his career where he can’t play all the songs that fans want to hear. It’s a great problem to have but right now he seems to be rotating songs like ‘Houston, We Got a Problem,’ 5 Leaf Clover’, ‘Refrigerator Door’ and ‘Doin This’. We got ‘Refrigerator Door’ but the absence of ‘Doin’ This’ was a bit of a hole for me as it’s such a powerful and personal song, but hey, you can’t win ’em all, right?
Combs took the opportunity to chat to the crowd about the origins and genesis of a few of his songs before he played them so we got the story of how he showed up for a write after a wild night out in a bar for what would become ‘She Got the Best of Me’, we heard about how ‘Beautiful Crazy’ came into being and why Combs chose to cover ‘Fast Car’. There’s a grateful aura and humble persona around the guy that makes it really easy to see him as just ‘one of the boys’. Despite his success and everything that has happened to Luke Combs in the last 6-7 years, you can see that it’s music, family and friends that still motivates and grounds him and long may that continue!
‘Where the Wild Things Are’, one of my favourite songs of the year, was immense and it kick-started a run a of seven songs that cleverly built up a run towards main-set ending ‘Beer Never Broke My Heart’ that took the audience on a journey that you would be hard-pressed to better with anyone else in Country music right now. The drama of ‘Hurricane’, the fun of ‘1,2 Many’ (with its obligatory ‘shotgun can’ moment between Combs and a guy in the crowd), the pure joy of ‘When it Rains it Pours’ and the southern rock bombast of ‘Beer Never Broke My Heart’. All classics and all hitting the Amsterdam crowd in different ways. The crescendo finish of ‘Beer Never Broke My Heart’ had the whole arena dancing and fist-punching the air as the guitars cut loose and the heavy rhythm section dictated proceedings for 3 or 4 minutes and then Combs was gone, after some frantic bashing of the symbols and a wave to the crowd.
A two song encore of ‘Better Together’ (which was played out with just Combs and a piano) and ‘The Kind of Love We Make’ saw Combs promising to come back as he prowled the stage from left to right, smiling and thanking the crowd. The show was a slick exercise in entertainment yet at no point did it cross over into being bland or soulless like these big arena shows can sometimes tend to be.
Live, Luke Combs is a little less Country and a little more Rock than he is in the studio and it suits him just fine. That mix of the two worlds will only serve to bring him more fans and Combs’ presence and persona and the proficiency of his band mean that even arena stages and aircraft-hangar concert halls can be made to feel like intimate spaces and Broadway bars. Luke Combs came to Amsterdam and left the Dutch delighted with what they saw, you can’t ask for more than that.
Setlist: 1. Lovin’ on You 2. Hannah Ford Road 3. Cold as You 4. One Number Away 5. Love You Anyway 6. Going, Going, Gone 7. Refrigerator Door 8. Must’ve Never Met You 9. Beautiful Crazy 10. Dust on the Bottle / Meet in the Middle / When I Was Your Man 11. Forever After All 12. Where the Wild Things Are 13. Fast Car 14. She Got the Best of Me 15. Hurricane 16. 1, 2 Many 17. When It Rains It Pours 18. Beer Never Broke My Heart 19. Better Together 20. The Kind of Love We Make Venue: AFAS arena Amsterdam Date: Saturday October 7th
