CHURCH BENEFIT: Eric Church, left hugs North Carolina football coach Mack Brown after the Tar Heels beat South Carolina in 2023 at Bank of America Stadium. Church is part of the Concert For Carolina benefit show for Hurricane Helene victims, Oct. 26 at the stadium. (AP Photo)
The benefit shows for Hurricane Helene victims keep popping up, and one of the biggest to date is the Concert For Carolina at Bank of America Stadium, announced this morning by Live Nation and Tepper Sports and Entertainment.
Luke Combs, Eric Church, Billy Strings and James Taylor will perform Oct. 26 at the 75,000-seat stadium in Charlotte, home of the NFL’s Carolina Panthers and Major League Soccer’s Charlotte FC. Additional artists will be announced soon. The event will be hosted by Barstool Sports’ Caleb Presley and ESPN’s Marty Smith.
Tickets go on sale Thursday at Ticketmaster.com. Details at www.concertforcarolina.com.
All proceeds from the event, including sponsorships, will be split evenly between charities tied to Church’s Chief Cares Foundation, and for Combs’ portion, through Samaritan’s Purse, Manna Food Bank and Second Harvest Food Bank of Northwest NC.
Explore Asheville, T-Mobile, Jack Daniel’s, Whataburger, Miller Lite and Blue Cross and Blue Shield of North Carolina, are among the event’s corporate sponsors.
Concert For Carolina was spearheaded by Luke Combs, who approached Tepper Sports and Entertainment about the idea of holding a stadium benefit, according to David Tepper, owner of the Panthers and Charlotte FC. At that point, TSE “felt compelled to open the doors of Bank of America Stadium for this special moment,” Tepper said in a prepared statement.
Combs and Church are both North Carolina natives. On his own, Combs, born in Huntersville and raised in Asheville, attended Appalachian State in Boone, which along with Asheville, were among the communities that sustained heavy damage from last week’s storm. Combs headlined a concert at the school’s Kidd Brewer Stadium in 2021 and played consecutive sold-out nights at BOA Stadium in 2023.
Church, a native of Granite Falls, about 70 miles east of Asheville, started his career in western North Carolina, before relocating to Nashville. He recorded his most recent album, the three-part Heart & Soul, in Banner Elk, North Carolina. In 2016, Church was inducted into the North Carolina Music Hall of Fame. Two years ago, he was awarded the North Carolina Award, the state’s highest civilian honor.
Last Friday, he released the song “Darkest Hour” in response to the natural disaster, with all publishing royalties donated to charity.
Strings, heir apparent to the jam band throne, has played North Carolina multiple times at arenas over his meteoric rise as a concert draw in Asheville, Greensboro and Winston-Salem, North Carolina and is booked for a six-night run at ExploreAsheville.com Arena in February. His December 2016 performance at the Rabbit Hole club in Charlotte was among his first shows in the Tar Heel State.
Taylor, the lineup’s elder statesman and member of the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, moved to Chapel Hill, North Carolina with his family when he was 3 years old. His father served as dean of the UNC medical school from 1964-71. James Taylor has a bridge named after him over Morgan Creek, near Winston-Salem, and his song, “Carolina in My Mind,” is among his signature compositions.
