After a rain-shortened first night, Luke Combs makes a splash at Gillette
FOXBOROUGH — Is Luke Combs an unlikely country superstar? According to the short video that preceded his arrival on Gillette Stadium’s stage Saturday, he is: The North Carolina native is a regular guy who was told by many people in Nashville that he didn’t fit the marquee mold. But when he opens his mouth to sing, all bets are off — and his show on Saturday proved that the current Country Music Association Entertainer of the Year can, in fact, light up the biggest stages.
Combs played his second Gillette show of the weekend on Saturday; Friday night’s concert had been cut short by torrential storms, and Combs seemed determined to put on as full of a set as he could for its follow-up. Over two-plus hours, the singer-songwriter and his backing band cycled through about two dozen songs, with Combs contextualizing some while walking around the vast stage, blue party cup in hand.
Combs’s first album only came out in 2017, but he’s already released a slew of country-radio-ready cuts that thrilled Saturday night’s audience into singalongs and hoisted phones. As a songwriter, he specializes in hooky, straightforward popcountry songs that are elevated by their detail-studded lyrics, which remain kindhearted even when they’re dealing with endings like the wistful “Going, Going, Gone” and the dust-off-the-boots jam “She Got the Best of Me.” Perhaps unsurprisingly, he has a particular talent for writing melting-heart love songs, like the domestic-bliss portrait “Beautiful Crazy,” that derive extra emotion from the way he adds a touch of syrup to his voice.
Combs is enjoying some pop-crossover fame through his cover of Tracy Chapman’s 1988 edge-dweller chronicle “Fast Car,” which is currently at No. 2 on the Hot 100. Before playing it, he noted that the track had been one of his favorites since childhood — he was born two years after it came out — and saluted Chapman. While the recorded version, which appears on his most recent album “Gettin’ Old,” sounds a touch too smooth given the desperation-tinged lyrics, performed live it hit a poignant note. He brought out a young Make-A-Wish recipient to finish the song with him, giving extra weight to its chorus’s last line — ”I had a feeling I could be someone, be someone, be someone.” That refrain also called back to the depiction of Combs as a striver in the show’s intro, while his set showed how that faith in himself had paid off for him and his audience.