Cities Revealed For The Second Leg Of Eric Church’s ‘Free The Machine’ Tour

More dates coming.

Earlier this year, Eric Church announced his upcoming Free the Machine tour, which kicks off tonight, September 12 at PPG Paints Arena in Pittsburgh and runs through November 15 at the Intuit Dome in Inglewood, California.

The announced dates are mainly in the northern half of the country, leading to a lot of disappointment from fans in the south and speculation that there would be a second leg of the tour announced at a later date.

And it looks like that’s indeed the case.

With the tour kicking off tonight, Church just unveiled the Free The Machine tour merch – and on the back of the tour shirt, it includes all of the stops, including the as-of-yet unannounced second leg:

The second leg will include stops in:

• Washington, DC
• Omaha, NE
• Sioux Falls, SD
• St. Paul, MN
• Toronto, ON
• Buffalo, NY
• Albany, NY
• Little Rock, AR
• Kansas City, MO
• St. Louis, MO
• Tulsa, OK
• Fort Worth, TX
• Austin, TX
• Knoxville, TN
• Greensboro, SC
• Charleston, SC
• Birmingham, AL
• Atlanta, GA
• Hollywood, FL
• Greenville, SC
• Charlotte, NC
• Jacksonville, FL
• Tampa, FL

Of course we don’t have the dates for the unannounced shows yet, but for those of you who were disappointed that Church wouldn’t be coming anywhere close on the tour, it looks like you’re going to get a second chance to catch him the Free The Machine tour in 2026.

The tour is the first since Eric hit the road for his Outsiders Revival tour back in 2023, and will be the first opportunity for fans to hear songs his just-released album Evangeline vs. The Machine live and in person.

Well, sort of…

Church is playing two shows at The Pinnacle here in Nashville to celebrate the release of the album, where he’ll play Evangeline vs. The Machine live from front to back, along with some other hits. And he also took the stage at Red Rocks for three nights this summer, with each show having a completely different theme.

The first night at Red Rocks was Eric Church vs. The Machine, which featured the orchestra and choir that you hear on his latest album. The second night was Eric Church vs. The Eric Church Band, a throwback show of sorts that featured Church and his original band digging deep into their catalog to play some fan favorites. And the final (and most magical) show of the run was Eric Church vs. The Guitar: Just Chief, his longtime backup singer Joanna Cotten, and his guitar.

And according to Church, the tour is going to be a mixture of all three of those in one incredible evening.

Speaking with Variety on what he has planned for the Free the Machine tour, Church says he wants to incorporate parts of each of the Red Rocks shows into the tour:

“Everything we do every stop on the tour is gonna be within the scope of those three nights. So the first night at Red Rocks, we’re gonna do an orchestra, big band kind of thing. Night two, we’re gonna do old-school band, the OG group. And then night three is me acoustic. So I think the (normal one-night-only) show will end up being in some way the three Red Rocks shows combined into one.

You’re gonna have these moments of where we are now with “Evangeline,” and we’re gonna also bring some of the strings and horns into some of our older stuff. You know, you’ve seen “Mistress (Named Music),” you’ve seen “Knives (of New Orleans)” before, but not this way. And then we’ll kind of go into what got us here, and then I think the end of the show will be me and a guitar.”

I’ll be heading up to Michigan next month to catch a show on the first leg of the tour, but I’m already eyeing a couple of dates on the second leg that I’ll be there for too.

Can never have too many Chief concerts – and it looks like giving us plenty of opportunities to get our fill.The post Cities Revealed For The Second Leg Of Eric Church’s ‘Free The Machine’ Tour first appeared on Whiskey Riff.