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)

Native son Luke Combs leads effort

The benefit shows for Hurricane Helene victims keep popping up, and the biggest to date is the Concert For Carolina at Bank of America Stadium in Charlotte, announced Monday 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.

On Wednesday, Sheryl Crow, Keith Urban and Bailey Zimmerman were added to the bill with more artists to be announced soon, according to concert officials. Live Nation is the promoter.

The event will be hosted by Barstool Sports’ Caleb Presley and ESPN’s Marty Smith.

Tickets went on sale today (Oct. 10) at Ticketmaster.com. The midfield stage setup resulted in roughly 80,000 seats available for purchase.

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, Biltmore Estate, 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, a rabid Panthers fan 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.

Three of the four artists have close ties to North Carolina.

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 Sun Belt Conference school’s Kidd Brewer Stadium in 2021 and played consecutive sold-out nights at Bank of America 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.

Taylor, the lineup’s elder statesman and a 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.

Strings, heir apparent to the jam band throne, has played North Carolina arenas in Asheville, Greensboro and Winston-Salem over his meteoric rise as a concert draw 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.

Elsewhere in Charlotte, two bluegrass concerts booked prior to the storm have been converted to Helene benefit shows through promoter MaxxMusic.

The Steep Canyon Rangers, with support from Ashes & Arrows, perform Oct. 17 at The Amp Ballantyne, the city’s newest amphitheater with 5,000 capacity. Two weeks later, on Nov. 3, a collection of four local groups, billed as the Charlotte Bluegrass Sessions, play the Neighborhood Theatre.

Jam bands are also contributing to the cause. On Tuesday, Wake Forest University announced that Goose would perform Helene benefit concerts on Oct. 25 at Lawrence Joel Veterans Coliseum in Winston-Salem and the next day at Avondale Brewing Co. in Birmingham, Alabama.

For Goose, those dates essentially replace their late October shows initially set for ExploreAsheville.com Arena, which were canceled after the storm as Asheville recovers from extensive damage to the community.

Editor’s Note: This story has been updated.