Inside Eric Church's intimate, career-spanning set at the Country Music Hall of Fame in Nashville

Eric Church's first of two nights as the latest of 18 artists since 2003 to be celebrated by the Country Music Hall of Fame and Museum's Artist-in-Residence program was an intimate and theatrical Broadway-style presentation of a 19-song, two-hour concert by the "Chief" and his and a nine-piece band.

Roughly three-quarters of the way through a 33-date run of 2023 shows, the evening found Church and crew in mid-season form.

The Country Music Hall of Fame and Museum's CMA Theater is roughly one-tenth the size of Orange Beach, Alabama's Wharf Amphitheater he played just two weeks ago.

Before the performance, venerated music historian and journalist Robert K. Oermann recalled a night 17 years before Tuesday when Church's debut album "Sinners Like Me" premiered in the Hall and Museum's Ford Theater, a room even smaller than the one he played this week.

One thing remained similar from the Ford to the stadiums and amphitheaters where Church now regularly plays and back to a crowd at the CMA Theater primarily comprised of members of his "Church Choir" fan club, friends and family.

"The crowds nail it; they [sing] along to every song," stated Oermann.

An intimate, impactful evening

Alongside Church, the show featured 2007 Hall inductee (and 2009 Artist-in-Residence) Vince Gill, honoring Church's brother Brandon's 2018 passing with a stirring acoustic rendition of his three-decade-old classic "Go Rest High on That Mountain."

If looking for pyrotechnics, this wasn't that show.

If looking for Church, often appearing bewildered by the impact of his catalog on those he cares about deepest sitting mere feet from his face in a unique concert hall setting, reflecting on a rare career moment, that's the type of event this was.

The concert was a career retrospective that began as a review from an artist who early in his career, in the face of blunt criticism, had to remain self-deprecating beyond a fault to continue on.

Then, his appeal became undeniable as success arrived via a rare-to-Nashville groundswell of support from outside of Music City's industrial machine. To reflect this, the mood of Church's Tuesday night on-stage presentation turned stubbornly self-reverential.

At that point, the performance felt more like Rocky with his beleaguered arms held high after 15 rounds against Ivan Drago than the proud celebration of shining accomplishments.

Standing ovations punctuate Church's star-making songs

Church's pride in remaining steadfast to a blues, pop and Southern rock-driven perspective yielded four standing ovations in under an hour at the CMA Theater for not just Gill's appearance but "Why Not Me" (as a reference to the Highway 91 Festival tragedy in Las Vegas), "Heart and Soul" double-album track "Through My Ray-Bans" and the song he revealed was his favorite of his career: 2015 "Mr. Misunderstood" album track "Holdin' My Own."

Glimmers of hope and acclaim cast against a tough life and career journey gained a new level of thunderous appreciation from those in attendance.

Songs were interspersed with a retro-style TV playing black-and-white images from Church's past.

Church is a Western North Carolina mountain-born son of a furniture upholstery company president who cut his teeth by playing Jimmy Buffett cover songs in dive bars. On the screen played videos with voiceovers lampooning church for his "limited" vocal range and calling him a "sellout" over his musical sensibilities.

Clearly, Church's resolve yielded a continuing cycle of country acclaim that has sustained the genre's core demographics while appealing to intrigued mainstream ears.

Five years into his work, Capitol Nashville was readying to drop him from the label for his caustic attitude and lack of "hit" material -- he hadn't achieved a platinum-selling album or chart-topping success yet.

Fans in the crowd laughed as a voicemail from a label executive demanding more easily marketable material was played on the screen.

'Country Music Jesus' -- a superstar

His 2011 album "Chief" changed everything. "Country Music Jesus," a track on the album, sounds like Alabama's "Mountain Music," while "Springsteen" sounds like countrified covers of The Boss' Greatest Hits compilation. By the time Church launched into 2015's "Mr. Misunderstood" Tuesday, he was channeling modern-era country hitmaker that he ultimately became.

Church's mainstream career enters a two-decade-long run, leading to a moment when multiple North Carolina mountain men have achieved all-genre Hot 100 chart-topping country music success.

Oliver Anthony and Luke Combs have also recently faced criticism for being artists with limited vocal range and the material they perform. Like Church, though, both remain undaunted.

Show-closer "Holdin' My Own" also defines the standard upon which country music's outlaw inspirations now exist as a mainstream expectation.

As Church did, set forth on an audacious journey that yields as many "big fishes" as "stitches." As long as God and family remain first and a clear head and pure heart guide that quest, it will yield hard-earned, sustainable success.

This article originally appeared on Nashville Tennessean: Eric Church takes over Nashville's Country Hall of Fame for intimate set