A special halftime show for a special game.
The New Orleans Saints announced today that Eric Church will join an all-star lineup, headlined by Trombone Shorty and featuring Kirk Franklin, Juvenile, Cyril Neville, and Ivan Neville, that will perform at halftime of the Saints game against the Atlanta Falcons on Monday Night Football next week.
While he may seem like an unlikely addition to the lineup that largely features talent from the Big Easy, Church has teamed up with Trombone Shorty quite a few times in the past, including most recently when he appeared at the New Orleans musician’s star-studded “Shorty Turns 40” birthday concert this past spring.
Church also invited Trombone Shorty to make a surprise appearance during his show in New Orleans on his Gather Again tour, where the two (along with R&B/jazz singer Ledisi) absolutely burned it down on funky covers of “Ophelia” and “Proud Mary,” as well as Church’s own song “Cold One.”
Not long after that, Shorty returned the favor, inviting Church to perform with him during his annual “Treme Threauxdown” that he hosts every year in New Orleans during Jazz Fest – performance that Church says inspired him to make his most recent album Evangeline vs. The Machine:
“Trombone Shorty came and played a show with me in New Orleans on the Gather Again tour, and we ended up in the dressing room after and got in this incredible conversation about brass instruments and string instruments and the history of music.
Later he invited me to come play this show he does during Jazz Fest. There were probably two white people onstage that night: Me and Steve Miller.
So we do my song “Cold One” and “Come Together.” I’ve done “Cold One” a thousand times, but I had never done “Cold One” like that. It was a Black New Orleans band with horns and background singers and a violin player — not Juilliard violin but like a janky New Orleans violin. The dude had the damn thing on his shoulder, not under his chin.
Everything was wrong for what that song is. I’m not convinced anyone even knew the song. But we found our spot in the middle of it, and it was killer. I flew home thinking: I want to do a record this way.”
I’ll be honest, I wouldn’t mind seeing Church and Shorty do a whole album – or a tour – together.
Of course the game this coming Monday is a special one for the city of New Orleans and the Saints, which will be celebrating 20 years since the team returned to the Superdome following the devastation of Hurricane Katrina.
If you don’t remember that moment, it’s hard to put into words just what that game – also against the Atlanta Falcons – meant to the city. The Superdome was used as a shelter of last resort back in 2005 for those who couldn’t evacuate during the storm, and quickly turned into a humanitarian crisis as 10,000 residents waited days to be evacuated.
The Saints played the 2005 season at LSU’s Tiger Stadium and the Alamodome in San Antonio, but returned to the Superdome on September 25, 2006 for their first game in the city in nearly two years. Calling it a game, though, does a disservice to how much the moment meant to the city of New Orleans, a city that had been wiped out just a year before and was still struggling to recover.
The game was a sign of hope for an entire city, a moment of light for a city that had been through so much darkness. And when the crowd erupted as the Saints took the field, it was immediately clear just how much the moment meant to a community that had suffered for so long.
On September 25, 2006, the New Orleans Saints played on Monday Night Football against the Falcons in their first game back at the Superdome after the devastation of Hurricane Katrina. 20 years later, the Saints again will host the Falcons at the Superdome on Monday Night Football Oct. 5 #nfl #saints #hurricanekatrina
♬ original sound – espnoriginals
Just over a minute into the game against their biggest rival, Saints linebacker Steve Gleason blocked a punt from the Falcons that was recovered in the endzone by cornerback Curtis Deloatch, causing the crowd to erupt in deafening cheers not only for their team, but in hope for their city.
It was a moment that immediately changed the course of New Orleans history, and I don’t think anybody from the city would argue that’s an overstatement. The Saints went on to win the game 23-3 on a night where no team was going to be able to come into the Dome and win. And Gleason’s blocked punt has since been immortalized with a statue outside of the Superdome simply titled “Rebirth.”
I used to live in New Orleans, and it’s hard to overstate the impact that this game – and the Saints Super Bowl win a few years later – had on the city and the people who had been through so much. On my first day of orientation at Tulane, we had a session on the history of the city that included Gleason’s blocked punt as a turning point in the city’s recovery, a sign of resilience and a beacon of hope for a battered city.
Gleason has since been diagnosed with ALS and is confined to a wheelchair, but he’s become a hero to New Orleans and an ambassador not only for ALS but for New Orleans and the Saints. I was lucky enough to meet him while I lived there, and it’s immediately clear what a special person he is and just how much he means to the city.
It’s no doubt going to be an emotional game on Monday Night Football, which will feature Irma Thomas performing the national anthem, just as she did at that return game 20 years ago.
There’s no doubt that Eric Church, along with Trombone Shorty and everybody else joining him at halftime, will do the city proud as they celebrate a moment that turned around a devastated city.
As a Saints fan myself, I’m really having to talk myself out of making a trip back to New Orleans for this one.