Review: Chris Stapleton’s most memorable Charlotte moment wasn’t in the setlist
Chris Stapleton couldn’t take his eyes off her — and neither, it seemed, could anyone else.
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He was standing there inside Bank of America Stadium in Charlotte on Saturday night, acoustic guitar in hand, smiling beneath the brim of his cowboy hat as they duetted on his 2015 hit “Parachute.”
A woman sitting next to me got misty-eyed. Judging by the reaction around her, she wasn’t alone.
It became one of those spontaneous moments that felt almost impossibly perfect, the kind that couldn’t have gone better if it had been scripted.
A lot has been made of the unique connection between Stapleton and his wife Morgane in the 11 years since he blew up with his rendition of “Tennessee Whiskey.” Except in this case, we’re not talking about Morgane Stapleton. We’re talking about a little girl who was maybe 8 years old, whom Stapleton invited onstage after spotting her in the crowd clutching a homemade sign that read: “Chris Stapleton, can I sing ‘Parachute’ with you?”
The only problem? He had already sung “Parachute.”
But nobody seemed to mind when, less than 45 minutes into his nearly 2½-hour headlining set, Stapleton invited the young fan up anyway. And with very little preparation, the girl — dressed in a yellow T-shirt, cut-off jean shorts and a cowboy hat — proceeded to sing an extended acoustic version of the song with one of country music’s biggest stars.
As it turned out, that little duet captured something essential about the night.
Despite the giant video boards, towering speaker arrays, carefully designed lighting and NFL-sized surroundings, Stapleton’s “All-American Road Show” repeatedly found ways to feel surprisingly personal.
It started hours earlier, at 6 p.m., with opener Allen Stone forging his own kind of intimacy.
The Stevie Wonder-esque singer rewarded early birds with soulful vocals, funky guitar work and a sense of style that made him look as if he had wandered in from an alternate-universe version of the same tour.
Like Stapleton, he had long hair, a bushy beard and a guitar in his hand — although, unlike Stapleton, he did occasionally set the thing down. Unlike Stapleton, he wore fashionable sunglasses, a black scarf, a beige outfit decorated with a red heart and patches, and a leopard-print guitar strap.
He looked, in fact, vaguely like he could be Stapleton’s funky cousin, one who’d spent a semester in the Scooby-Doo cartoon universe and come back with an excellent falsetto; but musically, Stone stood in stark contrast — bluesy, soulful, colorful, physically loose, grooving around the stage to a batch of bouncy originals but probably making the biggest impression with a hip cover of James Taylor’s “Fire and Rain.”
Then came Lainey Wilson.
The 34-year-old firecracker — who last was at the stadium with Luke Combs in 2023, when her equipment got struck by lightning and she had to play acoustic — arrived looking like she had been assembled from the finest parts of a Nashville branding meeting: white cowboy hat, mirrored sunglasses, flared pants, patriotic Western top, glittering guitars, the whole modern-cowgirl silhouette.
But she worked.
She twirled. She skipped. She danced. She hooted and hollered, and waved her hands in the air like she just did not care. She demonstrated the little dance she’d made up for “Phone Keys Wallet.” And perhaps most memorably, during “Watermelon Moonshine,” she climbed off the stage with help from security and sang directly to individual fans, shook hands, signed cowboy hats, even handed the microphone to one man and encouraged him to “sing it, brother.”
I’ve been aware of this since I saw her at that Combs show three years ago: Wilson’s appeal seems rooted in making people feel like they’d enjoy hanging out with her.
As for Stapleton — who took the stage just before 9 p.m. — he’s virtually the antithesis of both of his openers. No one would describe him as a carefree goofball, like Stone, or as a down-to-earth Southern charmer, like Wilson.
Not to say he was cold. In fact, he bantered on Saturday more than his reputation might suggest.
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At one point, he joked that he couldn’t read a fan’s sign because “I’m 48, so I can’t see that well.” Later, after seeing well enough to spy a fan holding a sign asking if he’d autograph his copy of “Traveller,” Stapleton had a stagehand fetch it so he could sign it and return it, then noticed the fan’s wardrobe. “You’re wearing a Lainey Wilson shirt, though,” the singer cracked. “You’re gonna have to go buy one of mine now.”
So no, he wasn’t mute. He wasn’t personality-less.
But he also didn’t exude stadium-star charisma in the usual way.
He resists stadium excess. No dancers. No pyro. No video-game graphics. No desperate attempt to make every song look like, say, the opening ceremony of an Olympics held in a Bass Pro Shops. Meanwhile, Stapleton almost seems to will the cameras to focus on someone else; the giant video boards spent as much time highlighting harmonica solos, pedal-steel work and his wife Morgane’s harmonies as they did Stapleton himself.
In fact, if there’s a gimmick he employs — and I say this 100% affectionately — it’s Morgane.
Positioned near him much of the night, she remains central to both the sound and the emotional architecture of the performance. Her role has always seemed to be as much about comfort as musicianship.
As he does at every show, he looked at her almost constantly — perhaps most intensely during songs like “What Am I Gonna Do,” during “Millionaire,” during “Fire Away” — and when he wasn’t looking at her he was often glaring at his fingers as they attacked or caressed his guitar.
And that gets at something important about Stapleton generally.
He has always seemed more interested in following his instincts than managing a crowd. He will not behave like a man terrified of losing your attention. He will not give you the most efficient stadium show. As such, he will not always protect the momentum.
During a mid-set run that included “Drunkard’s Prayer,” “I Was Wrong” and a long bluesy instrumental excursion, the exodus toward bathrooms and beer stands became noticeable. After a euphoric performance of “Tennessee Whiskey” and the obligatory fake-goodbye-before-the-encore, large numbers of fans began heading for the exits, and continued leaving even when Stapleton returned for an encore that included deeper cuts “Sometimes I Cry” and “Outlaw State of Mind.”
Yet he remains vocally transcendent even in those more meandering moments, and especially when he sinks his teeth into something truly special.
Like “Where Rainbows Never Die,” stripped down to little more than an acoustic guitar and his signature gravelly grit — a performance so affecting that one friend texted afterward: “I was crying for sure.”
Like “Fire Away,” whose booming, aching chorus eventually persuaded thousands of fans to raise their phone lights, transforming the stadium into a field of stars.
Like “Tennessee Whiskey,” which arrived to one of the night’s biggest cheers, showcased his smoky, textured tone, and ended with a singalong so rapturous that it felt less like a performance than a communal act of worship.
Or perhaps, most memorably, like that impromptu duet of “Parachute” with the 8-year-old girl who’d been holding that sign.
The moment could have felt like a corny stunt, the sort of viral-ready fan interaction that is charming in the building and unbearable by the time it reaches your social feed.
Instead, it felt genuine.
Maybe because Stapleton did not oversell it. Maybe because he seemed genuinely tickled. Maybe because the girl could actually sing. Or maybe because here he was — yet again — trying to shift the focus away from himself.
At least as much as a man standing in front of 50,000 people possibly can.
1. “Bad As I Used To Be”
2. “Arkansas”
3. “Nobody to Blame”
4. “What Am I Gonna Do”
5. “Parachute”
6. “Millionaire” (Kevin Welch cover)
7. “Think I’m in Love With You”
8. “I’m a Ram” (Al Green cover) (with Allen Stone)
9. “Parachute” (reprise, with young fan)
10. “Where Rainbows Never Die” (The SteelDrivers song)
11. “Drunkard’s Prayer” (Solo)
12. “I Was Wrong” (Solo)
13. “Cold”
14. “Keep Your Hands to Yourself” (The Georgia Satellites cover) (with Lainey Wilson)
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15. “White Horse”
16. “You Should Probably Leave”
17. “Joy of My Life” (John Fogerty cover)
18. “Starting Over”
19. “Traveller”
20. “Fire Away”
21. “Broken Halos”
22. “Tennessee Whiskey” (David Allan Coe cover) (With band introductions)
23. “Sometimes I Cry”
24. “Outlaw State of Mind”
