An Eric Church Impersonator Fooled The Crowd At His Downtown Nashville Bar, Chief’s

That’s not the Chief, that’s the Deputy.

It’s not uncommon to see Eric Church hanging out at his downtown Nashville bar, Chief’s. Church is one of the few artists who actually owns his own bar (alongside his friend Ben Weprin of AJ Capital Partners), and aside from performing at the bar himself, Church has been known to pop in when friends are performing in the bar’s performance venue and spend time hanging out in the honky tonk or piano bar.

So it wasn’t a surprise when the crowd at Chief’s got excited last night to see Church himself hop up on stage with the band to perform his hit song “Springsteen.” Except it definitely wasn’t him.

Of course it’s understandable that fans thought it was the man himself, because the Chief doppelganger was actually Cody Martin, the frontman for an Eric Church tribute group called Take Me To Church. The band had performed at Chief’s last night, and as they were leaving the venue the band on stage just happened to be playing “Springsteen.”

As Martin made his way to the stage, the crowd began to grow – a lot – with fans who apparently thought he was actually Eric Church (which says a lot about Martin’s resemblance to Church himself).

@_aaronryan

The crowd was convinced this was actually Eric Church. #fyp

♬ original sound – Aaron Ryan

Fans rushed to the stage, phone cameras on and hands out to try to shake hands with (who they thought was) the country music superstar. And after the performance, fans lined up to get their picture taken with “Eric Church.” Although you’ve gotta wonder how many are waking up this morning with a hangover and realizing they didn’t actually meet the “Smoke A Little Smoke” singer like they thought they did.

Gotta think it’s a pretty big compliment to an impersonator when they get mistaken for the artist they’re paying tribute to.

The Brand New Song Eric Church Performed At Red Rocks Was Inspired By A Whiskey Riff Article

Church was at the iconic Red Rocks Amphitheatre in Colorado this past Wednesday for the final show of his epic three-night run. And it was one that all 10,000 people in attendance won’t soon forget.

The final show was Eric Church vs. The Guitar, an acoustic performance that featured just Church, his guitar, and (from about midway through the show on), his longtime duet partner and powerhouse background vocalist Joanna Cotten.

After opening the show with a cover of Leonard Cohen’s “Hallelujah” and then performing his unreleased ode to life as an artist, “On The Road,” Church stopped to introduce a new song that he had written that day…and it turns out, it was inspired by a Whiskey Riff article.

I recapped each night’s shows here, and in my article on night two, I mentioned that it was a throwback show of sorts. It was just Eric and his original band, and at one point in the night Church himself even joked that he’d had an airplane bottle and was wearing an American flag scarf like the old days:

“2012 broke out in here real fast.”

I pointed out that for those who say they “miss the old Eric Church,” night two at Red Rocks was proof that he’s undeniably still the Chief. And apparently that got Eric’s attention.

You can probably imagine my shock when I was standing in the crowd as Church mentioned the inspiration for his new song:

“I read an article. I never read anything. And I read this article today, it’s a site I really like, and the article said, ‘Eric Church played Red Rocks last night, and the old Eric Church, the Chief was back. It was 2012 all over again.’

And I’m a songwriter. So I wrote this song today. Why not, right?”

Well by that point I was scrambling to pull out my phone from under my rain-soaked poncho, but he then performed the new song he wrote called “New Old Me.”

“Little bit older, little bit wiser
Little bit simpler, little more strong
Little more the man I wanna be
Little more grounded, little more guided
Little less reckless and open wide
Now when I pass the mirror I see
Same guy I used to know, but these days
I’m just a new old me”

Now I’m a little biased, but I’m going to say that we need Church to get this one in the studio.

“New Old Me”

And now, I’ve got the ultimate answer whenever somebody says “tell us a fun fact about yourself.”The post An Eric Church Impersonator Fooled The Crowd At His Downtown Nashville Bar, Chief’s first appeared on Whiskey Riff.