With the Luke Combs tour hitting Europe right now there has been a lot of chatter about his setlist. It’s clear that Combs has now reached an unenviable position in his career in terms of what songs to play and what to leave out. ‘Fast Car’ has just provided Combs with his 17th number one, which is an incredible accolade but in a 20 song set, which is what the length of Combs’ European tour appears to be, it means that there is very little room for him to play anything else unless his begins to lengthen his shows. This means that he is now at the point in his career where there will be certain ‘big’ songs, popular songs, fan favourites or cherished deep-cuts that he won’t be able to play anymore.
We caught Luke Combs in Amsterdam last weekend and you can read a review of that show right here if you missed it the first time. Amsterdam was great. We got the 20 songs and a superb show as well but what was interesting, in some ways, was the songs Combs chose NOT to play rather than the ones he did.
No Luke Combs show would be complete without songs like ‘Hurricane,’ ‘When it Rains it Pours,’ ‘Beautiful Crazy,’ ‘Beer Never Broke My Heart’ and ‘One Number Away’. They are the sacrosanct songs. Alongside that it would be difficult to drop ‘She Got the Best of Me’, ‘The Kind of Love We Make’ and ‘Better Together.’ So, in a 20 song show, eight of the songs kinda demand inclusion before you even start putting a set list together. It’s the same for all successful artists so in that respect, Luke Combs is no different to Bon Jovi, Beyonce or Barry Manilow!
The next level of songs are still number ones for Combs but maybe they are a little expendable. Amsterdam didn’t get ‘Doin This’ (big mistake and a song that should be in the sacrosanct level for me), ‘Even Though I’m Leaving’ or ‘Does to Me’ although ‘Doin This’ has been in rotation with songs like ‘Refrigerator Door’, ‘5 Leaf Clover’ and ‘Houston We Got a Problem’ on this tour. I can see songs like ‘Forever After All,’ ‘Going Going Gone’ or maybe even ‘Cold as You’ not surviving the next cut when Combs needs to tour in a year or two’s time on his next album and another set of songs need to be squeezed into an already full-to-bursting set but you never know. Heaven forbid that Combs should ever drop ‘1,2 Many’,there might well be a riot and so that’s another song locked into his live set occupying an immovable place.
Then there are the fan-favourite songs. Combs’ cover of ‘Brand New Man’ appears to have been jettisoned but it’s always a great three minute romp. ‘Hannaford Road’ is currently in the set, from current album ‘Growin Old’ and it’s there absolutely on merit, right at the top of the set to keep the energy high, but it won’t be there on the next tour. ‘Where the Wild Things Are’ has just been released as Combs next single which should provide him with his 18th number one, ensuring that the most interesting and original, storytelling song in Combs’ armoury might well have a life beyond this tour but songs like ‘Beer Can,’ ‘Honky Tonk Highway’, ‘What You See is What You Get’ and ‘Don’t Tempt Me’ might well have bitten the dust now in terms of ever being played live again as Combs goes from strength to strength and from number one to number one.
We have to also address the ‘Fast Car’ issue and stare down the elephant in the room that is this song. It’s been such a phenomena for Luke Combs this year but looking ahead, some years down the line, is it worth its place in a crowded and under-pressure set list? It’s a cover and it’s not even close to being in a Luke Combs top 20 for me but it’s brought him new eyes, new attention and new fans from outside the Country sphere so will he be tempted to keep it in the set beyond this year and this tour? I hope not but I can see a branching timeline where he will.
So what are the solutions? I can think of three. The easiest one is for Combs’ talented team to work up a ten minute medley of 5 or 6 songs that can be aired with a verse and chorus which will make the fans think they have at least heard some of their favourite songs. A second solution will be to simply play for longer and extend the set by 3 or 4 songs. This, obviously, has an impact on Combs’ vocals in a very heavy-on-the-voice show and might well even have wider implications on timing and payment to venues depending on curfews, logistics and all that ‘behind the curtain’ type of stuff! A third solution would be to rotate more songs in and out of the set. Bands like Counting Crows, who have 30+ years of material and a wider back catalogue behind them do this type of thing: swapping in and out up to 5 or 6 songs a night in order to keep things fresh for themselves and entertain fans who go to multiple shows. Based on the amount of people trekking across Amsterdam, Paris, Hamburg, Belfast, Glasgow and London I’d say, anecdotally, that Combs does have a hard core fan base that is willing to travel to multiple shows and would benefit from this type of approach but it does have implications on the crew in terms of rehearsals, sound, lights and set structure when an artist or band starts to take that type of approach.
It was cool in Amsterdam to see the three songwriters who opened up the evening, Ray Fulcher, James McNair and Drew Parker, finish their own sets with a Luke Combs song that they each had a hand in co-writing. Maybe this could be the way forward and Combs becomes the first artist in the history of the recording industry to open up his own shows with a kind of ‘tribute’ act or writers playing songs of his that won’t feature in the main set? Wouldn’t that be an original idea?
For now, it appears that we are at ‘peak-Luke Combs’ in terms of the balance of fan expectation with his set list and the songs that are played. He’s now at a tipping point, though, in terms of the next phase of his career. I think we won’t see another album from him until 2025 as he’s released two albums back to back in quick succession and embarked on a world tour with a new baby in the house too. It wouldn’t surprise me to see Luke Combs have a much quieter 2024 but when he does come back with a new 12, 15 or 20 track album in the next phase of his career and there are number ones from that phase and fan-favourite album cuts too, he faces something of a dilemma in terms of just how to squeeze all his hits and beyond into a 20 song live setlist. It’s a wonderful problem to have, but a problem, none the less.
