As I mentioned in my last post, the coincidental placement of the Zach Bryan concerts a day and two ahead of Springsteen’s in both Edmonton and Vancouver brought us on the trip to Canada in the first place. We didn’t get any affordable tickets for Zach Bryan in Edmonton, but for Vancouver we had better luck. Consequently, on November 21, the day after Springsteen in Edmonton, we flew to Vanocouver to catch that concert.
We saw Zach Bryan already in New York in April this year, sadly missing Springsteen’s appearance on the concert in Brooklyn by only one measly week. However, after our extraordinary experience in UBS Arena, Long Island, we knew we wanted to see Zach Bryan again. We were also quietly hoping for Springsteen and Bryan to join stage again, especially after their collaboration on the song Sandpaper, which is featured on Zach Bryan’s album The Great American Bar Scene, a song they also performed live together at above mentioned concert in Brooklyn.
The fact that Bruce Springsteen and Zach Bryan share a mutual admiration for each other’s music was something you also could see in Rolling Stone’s “Musicians on Musicians” series recently.
Let me tell you a little bit more about Zach Bryan. He is an American singer-songwriter and a rising star in the country and folk music scene. In 2017 Bryan started uploading his music to YouTube. Back then he served in the U.S Navy, using his spare time to write and record music. Suddenly his song Heading South went viral. Since then his popularity has skyrocket and he has become one of the most popular and influential artists in country music today. He has often cited Bruce Springsteen as one of his biggest influences. He even has a tattoo of a lyric from Springsteen’s song State Trooper on his left bicep.
My anticipations were high as we entered Rogers Arena in Vancouver. Yes, you read right “Rogers” again. In Edmonton it was Rogers Place and in Vancouver, Rogers Arena. Who the heck is Rogers? I thought. It must be one of the founding fathers of the country of Canada. Turns out that it comes from “Rogers Communications”, a major Canadian telecommunications and media company, quite disappointing.
Back to the concert. We had waited for the support acts to finish until we entered the arena. Our seats in section 104, on the long side towards the curve, were acceptable. There was a huge cross-shaped stage placed at the center of the arena floor and during the show Bryan spent much of his time dutifully marching from plateau to plateau to make sure each side of the room got its face time.
At about 9 pm the last night of the Canadian leg of the “Quittin’ Time Tour,” which has been travelling North America since March, began. The song Overtime opened the set and the massive singalong started: “Ooooovertime”. In fact, there wasn’t a single song in the set that didn’t receive huge, almost deafening singalongs. Open the Gate, God speed and The Great American Barscene (which was changed to the Great Vancouver Barscene) followed and the crowd sure was on their toes. “I love you guys so much”, Bryan said and “I don’t deserve you” only to draw even more cheers.
As the night went on, there was always something to watch; on the screens or a performer on stage. I liked that he put clips of his music videos, at-home footage, and videos of him and his friends on the big screens. During the song Nine Ball the track’s video, starring Matthew McConaughey, was played on screens near the ceiling.
The most notable person on stage, apart from Zach Bryan, was multi-instrumentalist Read Connolly, who in honour of the day wore an oversized suit reminiscent of the one of Talking Heads’ David Byrne.
We’re havin’ an all-night revival
Someone call the women and someone steal the Bible
For the sake of my survival
Baptize me in a bottle of Beam, put Johnny on the vinyl
And then, after an awkwardly long break, Bryan and the band returned to the stage for, an at least 10-minute, single-song encore of Revival, a loud enthusiastic celebration of misbehaviour (includning band introductions) and the only song I’ve memorized parts of the lyrics from. During the song’s band introductions T-shirt cannons fired packages into the crowd- a bombastic ending to a great night, even without a surprise visit from Bruce Springsteen. If you haven’t been to a Zach Bryan concert yet, I really recommed you to. It is a fantastic experience.
📷: pita_oli and myself
Setlist:
- Overtime
- Open the Gate
- God Speed
- The Great American Bar Scene
- Fifth of May
- Tishomingo
- Nine Ball
- ’68 Fastback
- Condemned
- Sandpaper
- East Side of Sorrow
- Girl From the North Country
- November Air
- 28
- Oklahoma Smokeshow
- Pink Skies
- Dawns
- Tourniquet
- Heading South
- Heavy Eyes
- Something in the Orange
- Hey Driver
- Burn, Burn, Burn
- I Remember Everything
- Mechanical Bull
- Quittin’ Time
- Revival
Stray Bullet 
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