Zach Bryan was only a few songs into his show at Ann Arbor’s Michigan Stadium on Saturday when he shouted, “Thank you so much for the best night of my life.” And later, during “Dawns,” he marveled, “This might be the craziest thing I’ve ever done.”
What could be so crazy about a show at Michigan Stadium? For starters, there’s no place like it — the Big House, as Michigan Wolverines football fans call it, has a capacity of 107,601, making it the largest stadium in the Western Hemisphere. Football fans in Ann Arbor are used to setting attendance records. Not to be outdone, Bryan fans looked to set a new mark for the largest ticketed concert in U.S. history. Final attendance figures are not yet available, but organizers announced before the show that more than 112,000 tickets had been sold, which would eclipse the 110,905 mark set by George Strait at Texas A&M’s Kyle Field last year. For a guy like Bryan, who was still in the Navy four years ago and was playing small clubs as late as 2022, crazy indeed.
Just as crazy: Throughout its 98-year history, the Big House had never hosted a concert (unless you count a small show organized in 1987 by legendary football coach Bo Schembechler’s wife, Millie Schembechler, to warn a crowd of 5,000 high-schoolers of the dangers of substance abuse). It might be an impossible task to work every bit of a 112,0000-strong crowd, but Bryan was up for the challenge. He scored points before he played a note, as he and the band walked onstage to the Killers’ “Mr. Brightside,” an unofficial hype song played during every home football game, and Bryan wore a customized maize-and-blue football jersey, Number Two.
From there, Bryan effortlessly moved between quiet, self-reflective acoustic songs (“God Speed,” “28”) and country-rock anthems (“Quittin’ Time,” “Revival”). If there’s a common thread through all of Bryan’s songs, whether loud or soft, fast or slow, it’s the shout-along chorus. When Bryan was at his best, as on the devastating song of love and loss, “East Side of Sorrow,” the stadium shook as tens of thousands joined him in the anthemic chorus, and when Bryan would drop out and let the crowd take the lead, he looked as much a spectator as a performer, taking in the magnitude of the scene.
Bryan, setting up on a field where Michigan legends like Tom Brady, Charles Woodson and Tshimanga Biakabutuka once played, let a boisterous band of at least 15 as they tore through nearly 30 songs. He employed a four-pointed stage (Zach’s “omnidirectional stage,” as fellow performer John Mayer quipped) at midfield that allowed Bryan to play to each side of the stadium throughout the set. From the stage the crowd spread across the field and up 98 rows of bleachers to the far reaches of the stadium. Four screens above the stage allowed the crowd to follow Bryan no matter which way he was facing. Volatile Midwestern fall weather was no issue, as it was a warm and cloudless night, and the scene outside the stadium looked not unlike a Michigan football Saturday, as fans tailgated along South Main Street and in the surrounding neighborhoods. Only they traded their football jerseys for cowboy boots, denim skirts, and 10-gallon hats and College Gameday on their TVs for Bryan on their stereos.
Despite the success of his tour, Bryan has hit some rough patches recently. He went through a very ugly and very public breakup with podcaster and influencer Brianna “Chickenfry” LaPaglia, who accused Bryan of emotional abuse and said he had asked her to sign an NDA. That led to a pair of diss tracks from LaPaglia’s boss, Barstool founder and podcast cohost (and Michigan football superfan) Dave Portnoy, aimed at Bryan; Bryan’s response was to burn a Bartsool flag before hitting it with a golf club. More recently, Bryan’s feud with fellow country singer Gavin Adcock came to a head when Bryan was captured on video scaling a fence to confront Adcock at Oklahoma’s Born & Raised Festival earlier this month. Saturday was his first show since the Adcock confrontation, and if the controversy was on his mind Saturday night, Bryan didn’t show it — nor did he address it from the stage.
Bryan got some help from a huge name. At 47, John Mayer is a ways removed from his days as a blues-pop heartthrob, but he’s still in his prime. While he hasn’t released a solo record since 2021’s Sob Rock, he’s kept plenty busy defining an increasingly impressive legacy. Mayer has been a part of Dead & Company for a decade now, and the band spent parts of the past two years in residence at the Sphere in Las Vegas before celebrating the Dead’s 60th anniversary with a series of shows in Golden Gate Park last month.
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The night was about Bryan — Mayer himself said, “Zach is the guy right now, carrying the torch ” — and the tone of Mayer’s set seemed to recognize that. Mayer steered away from the megahits of his youth in favor of a career sampler that included a soulful rendition of 2006’s “Gravity” and the breezy “Who Says,” during which Mayer substituted “Ann Arbor” for “Austin” in the chorus. From his more recent catalog, the delicate and disillusioned “I Guess I just Feel Like” from Sob Rock showed how much Mayer has matured since he launched onto the scene with 2001’s Room for Squares.
Mayer’s time with Dead & Company has left a mark on his guitar playing. While he’s always been a virtuoso, these days Mayer seems less interested in blues-rock shredding and showing off as he does in finding out where Jerry Garcia’s more fluid and laid-back improvisational style might take him.
Bryan invited Mayer onstage for a cover of “Friend of the Devil,” the Dead classic co-penned by Garcia. When Bryan missed a line, a look of embarrassment shot across his face as he turned to Mayer and said, “I told John I wouldn’t mess this up, and here we are.” Mayer didn’t seem to mind, though, and he didn’t miss a beat as he perfectly channeled a Garcia guitar solo. Mayer wasn’t Bryan’s only guest: He also brought out the War and Treaty to sing “Hey Driver,” a duet from Bryan’s 2023 self-titled album. Their appearance was extra special, as the husband-and-wife duo of Michael Trotter Jr. and Tanya Trotter originated in nearby Albion, MI.
Prior to Mayer’s set, Ryan Bingham, backed by the Texas Gentlemen, greeted the crowd with “Y’all ready to boogie?” and played a raucous country-rock set as the sun went down. Keenan O’Meara and Joshua Slone each played solo sets to start the evening.
Saturday’s show marked the end of Bryan’s summer stadium and festival tour, which saw him play before crowds of 65,000 on consecutive nights at London’s Hyde Park and 80,000 at Notre Dame Stadium as well as shows in Dublin, New York, and San Francisco. Impressive venues to be sure, but the Big House will stay on his mind: He punctuated a rendition of his hit “I Remember Everything” with a heartfelt, “I’ll remember this forever, Michigan.”
From Rolling Stone US
