Luke Combs Brings His Stadium-Sized Show to Chicago's Metro

As a country, it's not a controversial thought to say that we're obsessed with size. Sure, part of that energy is focused on making things smaller, especially in the tech world. Cell phones. Laptops. Power sources. Years or refinement and engineering go into making the next version of your favorite gadget smaller and lighter and faster than the previous one.

But most of the things this country has pride in are on the opposite side of the spectrum. No one celebrates the smallest roller coaster in the country. We want bigger. Faster. Taller. Broader. More calories and more decibels. And this mindset may not be stronger anywhere in the country (the United States) than in country (the music genre). So much of the culture of country comes from Texas, the biggest state in the contiguous 48 in both size and arguably in attitude. Country is associated with big ass trucks driving through big ass dirt fields. Big ass four wheelers driven by people drinking only the biggest ass of beers out of the biggest ass cans.

And in the biggest-is-best world of country music, there aren't many stars bigger than Luke Combs. He's got a massive voice, with clips of his soundchecks going viral during his stadium tours. Spending most of the last two years playing some of the biggest stadiums in the US and abroad, Combs is headlining the first night of Lollapalooza in Chicago, the first ever country artist to do so. Last time he came to Chicago, he played a sold-out Soldier Field. When it comes to the subject of size, Combs is a certified Big Deal.

But even he can appreciate keeping things smaller and stripped down. Less than a week ago, Combs played a set at the Newport Music Festival that spent the first 11 songs playing acoustic, stripped down versions of his songs (many from his most recent release, 2024's Fathers and Sons) before finishing things off with full-band, plugged in songs more aligned with his stadium shows. But by spending the majority of his set focusing on songs all about seeing your children grow up in a format that put the emphasis on his voice and the lyrics of each song, Combs recognized a way to elevate his performance to another level by going against convention and making things smaller and simpler.

Tuesday's official Lollapalooza 'aftershow' at the Metro (I say that because the 'aftershow' happened a full two days before Lolla kicked off officially) was a chance to further lean into 'smaller is better'. Going from playing Soldier Field to the 1,100 capacity Metro certainly fit the bill.

If the pressure was on Combs to be the official kickoff of Lollapalooza week in Chicago, how much more pressure was on opening act The Droptines to be the official kickoff to the kickoff? From the way they performed, you would think the answer was 'none at all'. The Texas-based alt-country act ripped through a half-hour set brimming with rock and roll energy and riffs mixed perfectly with a southern swagger and just a tinge of Austin weirdness. At times you might think you're listening to Springsteen gone country. Other times more of a Deer Tick growl mixed with the laid back flow of Tom Petty's best 80's work. If that sounds like a lot, it is...but the combination is the perfect sound to have eight or nine Lone Stars on the front porch to.

Can we just take a moment to appreciate Luke Combs' willingness to play a show at The Metro when he's used to playing the biggest stages in the world? Not to take anything away from his abilities as a performer, but the Metro can be a very unforgiving place to play. The audience, both on the floor and in the surrounding balcony, are practically on top of you. Gone are the pyrotechnics and fireworks that come along with playing a football field, replaced by...some basic lighting and maybe a fog machine if you ask for one. For heavier bands that use a ton of distortion and double bass drumming, you can get away with a few flubs here and there. But for an artist like Combs who relies on an acoustic guitar as his instrument of choice, there's nowhere for your sound to hide. Every vocal crack, every slightly off-time guitar strum was going to be on full display. For someone used to having to struggle to see individual faces in the crowd, Combs would essentially be elbow to elbow with the Windy City.

None of that is to say that Combs or his band did have any lyrical flubs or musical snafus on the evening (and if they did, I certainly didn't notice), but even if they had I don't think a single fan in the crowd would have cared. Kicking off his set with the 1-2 punch of 'Must've Never Met You' and She Got The Best of Me' accompanied by over a thousand screaming voices during each chorus, it was clear that Combs had mastered taking the best of both worlds and bringing them together. He used every ounce of his stadium-sized voice on songs like 'Where the Wild Things Are'', but somehow kept it from ever feeling overpowering in the small space. He tore through some of his biggest hits ('Beer Can't Fix', 'Forever After All'), but somehow kept them feeling spontaneous and fresh.

At the center of it all was Combs, every bit the superstar that he's turned himself into over the last few years. Through a set that borrowed heavily from both his 2017 debut This One's For You and the 2019 follow-up What You See is What You Get, Combs was able to be whoever he needed to be? Delivering an absolutely rockin' sing-along chorus? Belt things out with stadium intensity. Need to get a little more raw and vulnerable for songs like 'Even Though I'm Leaving' or 'When It Rains It Pours'? Dial things back without losing an ounce of intensity. The entire time his backing band provided the perfect structure to the evening. No frills, no autotune or over-the-top production. Just chemistry, raw musicianship, and an all-time voice.

Finishing the celebratory evening with an incendiary 'Ain't No Love in Oklahoma' and a rendition of 'The Kind of Love We Make' that provided the perfect singalong to send the audience off into the night with, Combs put a bow on the perfect midsummer gift he could give us to kick Lollapalooza off. Taking his stadium-sized show and stuffing it into one of Chicago's most legendary venues seemed like both a thank you to the city and a small preview of what Thursday's headlining set will bring.

Luke Combs Setlist - The Metro, Chicago 7.29.25

Must've Met You
She Got the Best of Me
Lovin' on You
Honky Tonk Highway
Where the Wild Things Are
One Number Away
Houston, We Got a Problem
Going, Going, Gone
Someone You Loved/A Thousand Miles/Seven Nation Army/Sultans of Swing/Gimme Three Steps
Forever After All
Beautiful Crazy
Fast Car
Hurricane
Cold as You
When It Rains It Pours
1, 2 Many
Ain't No Love in Oklahoma
The Kind of Love We Make