Twenty Years After the Superdome Reopened, Eric Church Joins the Halftime Party in New Orleans
Nashville's country crowd has watched Eric Church fill the biggest rooms in town. On Monday, Oct. 5, he will trade the honky-tonk and stadium stages of Music City for a different kind of homecoming night: halftime of the New Orleans Saints and Atlanta Falcons game inside the Superdome, a celebration of a milestone the whole football world remembers.
A night twenty years in the making
The game marks two decades since the Saints returned to the Superdome after Hurricane Katrina. That first game back, on Sept. 25, 2006, became one of the defining moments in modern American sports, a reopening that meant far more to a recovering city than anything on the scoreboard. Steve Gleason's blocked punt from that night is still commemorated outside the stadium with a statue called “Rebirth.” Irma Thomas, who sang the national anthem that night, will sing it again on Monday.
The halftime lineup
Trombone Shorty and his band, Orleans Avenue, are the headliners. Joining them are gospel star Kirk Franklin, rapper Juvenile and Cyril and Ivan Neville of the family that has been a pillar of New Orleans music for generations. Church is the lone country artist in the group, and his place on the bill is not a random pairing.
Church and Trombone Shorty have shared stages before, including at Shorty's 40th birthday concert and during the stop in New Orleans on Church's “Gather Again” tour. Church has also performed at Shorty's annual Treme Threauxdown during Jazz Fest, an experience he has credited as an inspiration for his album Evangeline vs. The Machine. The connection is as much about a shared taste for loud, soulful, improvised live music as it is about genre.
The Nashville angle
For Nashville listeners the booking is a reminder of how large Church's live reputation has grown. In May 2019 he became the first artist to headline Nissan Stadium on his own, playing roughly three hours from his catalog to a record crowd of 56,521. That building is now being replaced by the new stadium taking shape beside the Cumberland, which is why the city has spent this year talking about the big nights still to come, from the 2030 Super Bowl onward.
How to watch
The Saints and Falcons play on Monday night football, with the halftime performance expected to be a centerpiece of the broadcast. Check local listings for kickoff and channel details. If you only catch one slice of the night, make it the halftime show: it pairs a Tennessee country star with one of the most storied musical cities in America, on the night that city celebrates its comeback.
Music City and the Crescent City have always been musical cousins, and Monday will be one more reminder of that bond.
