Shoeys, gender reveal, beer and heartbreak: Luke Combs in Brisbane

Humble everyman Luke Combs charmed, serenaded and rocked the rapturous fans at his first Australian concert in Brisbane.

American country music star Luke Combs performing at the Brisbane Entertainment Centre Friday night. Picture: Justin Ma

A little bit of North Carolina country touched down in Brisbane Friday night, in the form of humble everyman Luke Combs who charmed, serenaded and rocked the rapturous fans at his first Australian concert.

The 33-year-old singer-songwriter told the 15,000-strong sold-out crowd at the Brisbane Entertainment Centre that he “never thought in a million years that anyone would hear” his songs “outside of the bars I was playing in North Carolina”.

“Here we are, literally across the world in Australia tonight,” he said.

In his trucker cap and with his trademark deep baritone, Combs is the bloke that you could have a beer with.

Luke Combs in Brisbane on Friday. Tickets to his Australian shows sold out within minutes of going on sale. Picture: Justin Ma

His brand of country is so enthralling that there were plenty of ecstatic hard-as-nails grown men, letting out their emotions to rousing songs about whiskey and heartbreak.

In fact, minutes before Combs stepped on stage a dozen or so excited fans decided to do shoeys, drinking from their cowboy boots, to cheers from the crowd, and Combs honoured the Australian tradition, taking a swig from a boot before he opened with Lovin’ on You just after 9pm.

Even though he is best known on radio in recent times for his cover of Tracy Chapman’s Fast Car, he has plenty of other hits which are lesser known to non-diehard fans.

American country music star Luke Combs performing at the Brisbane Entertainment Centre Friday night. Picture: Justin Ma

Tickets to all of his Australian concerts sold out in minutes, and he probably could have easily filled Suncorp stadium if it had not been booked out with Women’s World Cup football and NRL matches.

Lots of disappointed fans who couldn’t get tickets will be reading this review with envy as Combs did not disappoint.

What a treat for country Queenslanders, Combs on Friday and Ekka opening Saturday.

Luke Combs, whose hits include love songs and party anthems such as Beer Never Broke My Heart.

His songs are heartfelt, and he wrote Beautiful Crazy for his now-wife shortly after they met and turned footage from his real-life wedding into a music video for Forever After All. How romantic.

He told the crowd that she is due to give birth to their second child in September, six days after his Aussie tour ends and he returns home.

American country singer-songwriter Luke Combs. Picture: Jeremy Cowart

Between songs he made a fan’s day by popping her gender reveal balloon - she is having a cowgirl.

“I taught myself to play guitar when I was 21. I dropped out of college at 22, started writing songs, moved to Nashville when I was 24 in 2014,” Combs told his fans.

“In that same year before I moved to town I had made a trip to visit and ended up writing a song with two guys I had never met,” he said of the song, She Got The Best Of Me.

He explained, before singing hit son Hurricane, that it was his first number one song in the US, and it hit the top of the charts in May 2017.

“That led to a stream of events that I would have never told you in a million years was ever going to happen to a guy like me. But here we are night one, sold out,” he told the Brisbane

crowd.

Aside from being romantic towards his wife, Combs rhapsodises about cold beer, and threw cups or cans of it into the crowd to his adoring audience.

“It’s a pleasure to be here in your beautiful country. …I tell ya, I remember writing this next song, sitting out on the porch with two good friends of mine, two of us were married at the time and one of us was going through a really bad break-up,” he said.

“We wanted to try to write a song… that we can all three relate to at the same time. This is what we came up with its called Love You Anyway,” he said.

The first encore was Better Together and the second encore was The Kind of Love We Make, leaving us all wanting more from the country music superstar.

Combs plays a second show tonight in Brisbane before taking on Sydney, Melbourne, Adelaide and Perth.