Eric Chuch Weekend!!

lexilives ♦ March 19, 2012 ♦ Leave a comment

So Friday was The Big Day! The Eric Church & Brantley Gilbert show!! Justin and I are hardcore fans. In the 2 1/2 years we have been together we have seen Eric Church three times. Once in Philly, once in Scranton and now in Reading, PA. These concerts are more exciting to us than Christmas, birthdays, Valentines Day and anniversaries combined. Not even kidding.

I took a half day from work to get everything ready and be set to leave when Justin got out of work at 3pm. The ride there was actually really quick, we only hit a little traffic outside the Reading/Allentown area.

We stayed at the Abraham Lincoln in downtown Reading, PA, which was conveniently located 2 blocks from the Sovereign Center where the concert was held. The hotel was historical and had a very ornate lobby but the upper floors and our room was what I like to refer to as “nursing home warm.” No amounts of AC blasting could remove the humidity from the place. It was strange.

Anyways, after pre-gaming with a bottle of Brambleberry and getting ready at the hotel, we walked to the Sovereign Center which was packed with plaid and camo hillbillies. My people.

Brantley Gilbert opened the show. He was phenomenal. Most people aren’t aware that he is the writer of the majority of Jason Aldean’s music and he performs those songs at his shows so much better than Jason Aldean does (Adrienne and I saw Aldean a year ago in Wilkes-Barre.) His bad is pretty metal/badass.

Eric Church came on and sang all my most favorite songs. I was blown away by his performance. His enthusiasm was so genuine, you could tell he was having an awesome time on stage.

Per usual, all the cowboys raised their boots during “These Boots.” It’s an interesting sight to see.

Eric played my favorite “Springsteen” on piano. Everyone in the crowd “fired up their lighters” aka raised their cell phones.

That was the closing number. After the show we stumbled out onto the streets of Reading in search of J$’s friends from high school and an acceptable bar to drink.

J$ and the Reading Railroad, just like the Monopoly Board.

And then this happened… For the record, we only had one drink in here. The DJ was playing the Cupid Shuffle and we were searching for his friends still. We finally located them at The Ugly Oyster. Brantley Gilbert’s band was also at this bar, so naturally I had to be a pain in the ass and request a photo with the awesomely mohawked Ben Sims. He politely obliged. This got fuzzy after this point.