Happens to the best of ’em.

Eric Church hasn’t been on the road much since the end of his Free the Machine Tour back in April. He’ll be playing his first show since the end of the tour tomorrow at Barefoot Country Music Festival in Wildwood, New Jersey before hitting the stage at Red Rocks for three nights in July.

But the point is, it’s been a little while since he’s been on stage, so you can forgive him for being a little rusty.

Church made a surprise appearance last night with Kenny Chesney, who kicked off the 2026 run of his residency at the Las Vegas Sphere. The two have toured together in the past, and Eric was even on hand to pay tribute to Kenny at his induction into the Country Music Hall of Fame last year. So these two go way back and are close friends – and you can tell they have a lot of fun together on stage.

The duo kicked things off by performing “When I See This Bar,” a song from Kenny’s 2013 album Life on a Rock which they frequently performed together when Eric was opening up for Kenny on his Big Revival Tour.

But then they broke out a couple of Church’s songs – but ot without a couple hiccups.

As Eric began to sing his biggest hit, “Springsteen,” he only got a line into the song before forgetting the words, joking with Kenny:

“It’s always good to forget your biggest hit.”

Kenny recalled a time when he forgot the words to one of his songs, and he looked down in the crowd to see a fan holding them up on a phone for him – so when they re-racked and started again, Kenny picked up a phone out of the crowd to help Eric get through the first few lines:

x

Always good to have a little assist.

Of course it’s hard to tell how many times Eric has had to sing “Springsteen” at this point in his career. The song was released in 2011 as the third single from his groundbreaking Chief album, and became his second #1 single in January 2012. It’s since gone on to be certified 8x platinum by the RIAA, meaning it’s sold 8 million units in the United States, and is undeniably Church’s signature song.

But hey, when you’ve sung it that many times, you probably don’t even think about the words much – so there’s no doubt you’re going to forget them every now and then.

Last night at the Sphere was the first time Eric and Kenny were on stage together since way back in 2016, when Church joined Kenny for a surprise appearance at a free “keg show” at Sloppy Joe’s bar in Key West – something Kenny talked about last night at the Sphere:

“We toured together in 2013. We toured together again in 2015. We played Sloppy Joe’s down in Key West and he flew down and showed up.”

And the videos from that Key West show look absolutely incredible. I mean, can you imagine seeing Kenny Chesney and Eric Church at a dive bar on the beach? It wouldn’t get much better than that.