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CHRIS STAPLETON
@ Brisbane Entertainment Centre,
Brisbane,
28th February, 2025
(Live Review)

Review and photos by Alec Smart (@alecsmart_fotos)

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Chris Stapleton, Brisbane Entertainment Centre, 28 Feb 2025. Photo: Alec Smart

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Chris Stapleton, multi-award-winning Country music star, brought his All-American Road Show to Brisbane Entertainment Centre on 28 February, supported by a five-piece band.

The 13,500-seat venue hosted two sold-out concerts over successive nights. The Kentucky songwriter performed a total of six shows in Brisbane, Sydney and Melbourne on the Australian leg of his world tour – his first appearances Down Under.

The tour, Stapleton’s first as a solo headliner, began on 5 May 2017 in Alpharetta, Georgia, USA, to coincide with the release of his second studio album, From A Room: Volume 1.

Since then, he’s released albums From A Room: Volume 2 (2017), Starting Over (2020) and Higher (2023) and collected more accolades and awards.

To date he has earned 10 Grammy awards, 15 Country Music Association awards, 10 Academy of Country Music awards, 5 Billboard music awards and 9 ASCAP country awards.

The tour is scheduled to end on 11 October 2025 in Hollywood, Florida, encompassing 8 years and five months on the road.

Onstage, the gravel-voiced American was joined by his four-piece, black-clad backing band The Honchos (J.T. Cure on bass; Derek Mixon drums; Mike Eli LoPinto rhythm guitar; Paul Franklin lap-steel slide guitar) plus Mickey Raphael on harmonica (best known for his work with Willie Nelson) and Stapleton’s wife, Morgane Hayes, on vocals and tambourine.

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Chris Stapleton, Brisbane Entertainment Centre, 28 Feb 2025. Photo: Alec Smart

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Morgane, with whom he has five children (they married in 2007), is a successful songwriter by her own merit, having composed tracks recorded by LeAnn Rimes, Kellie Pickler and Carrie Underwood. She has also co-written several of Stapleton’s songs and co-produced his latest album.

The Brisbane concert’s 24-song set comprised a selection of Stapleton’s better-known compositions, some newer material, plus four covers (see set list below).

He opened with White Horse, from his latest (2023) studio release, Higher, one of five songs he played from the album, then went back and forth over his back catalogue, performing a range of material in different musical genres – country, blues, folk, soul and rock – much of which the enthusiastic crowd sung along to.

In between there were changes of guitars – several Epiphone and Gibson acoustics and among the electrics a classic Gretsch, a Gibson LG-2, a Fender Jazzmaster and a Fender Stratocaster.

Stapleton is an accomplished guitarist, and his talent was showcased during the 12-bar blues number I Was Wrong, which featured an extended guitar solo. During this he was backed by just the three-piece rhythm section of The Honchos while Paul, Mickey and Morgane lingered offstage.

Mid-way through the evening, Stapleton performed two solo numbers without the band: Mountains of My Mind (from his most recent album, Higher) and Whiskey and You (from his debut album, Traveller).

Whiskey (the drink) features prominently in a number of Stapleton’s songs (there was an advertisement for whiskey on the large screens at stage-side prior to the commencement of the concert), although he himself has been a teetotaller for several years.

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Chris Stapleton, Brisbane Entertainment Centre, 28 Feb 2025. Photo: Alec Smart

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However, he’s given his name to a range of whiskeys brewed in collaboration with the Buffalo Trace Distillery.

According to their marketing spiel: “This premium whiskey series blends the rich heritage of American whiskey-making with the soulful artistry of Chris Stapleton… Featuring distinct blends like the robust Heritage Blend, melodious Melody Reserve, adventurous Frontier Spirit, smooth Southern Harmony, and the bold Midnight Ramble, each bottle encapsulates the essence of craftsmanship and adventure.”

Prior to playing solo, Stapleton greeted different sections of the packed stadium, and turning to those in the recesses at the side of the stage, whom he acknowledged had limited vision of the performance, he quipped, “You bought those tickets late, huh?!”

Then he joked, “This is the part of the show when we fire everybody. We’ll hire them back in a few minutes!”

The song that probably inspired the biggest audience singalong of the night, which Stapleton encouraged, was Traveller, which he described as “the one that kicked it all off for us,” from his debut album of the same name.

A large proportion of the audience, which appeared to be 60:40 female-male ratio, came dressed in country clobber, from cowboy/girl Stetson hats to knee-high boots, short shorts and flannelette shirts, and some of the menfolk sported long bushy beards like Stapleton.

Chris Stapleton himself wore his iconic Charlie 1 Horse hat, a classic leather cowboy style that curves in at the sides and features a snakeskin band embellished with a large turquoise stone surrounded by a fan of bird feathers. See a replica made here.

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Chris Stapleton, Brisbane Entertainment Centre, 28 Feb 2025. Photo: Alec Smart

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Stapleton revealed on a Sept 2024 episode of the Today show that his road crew nicknamed the hat ‘Precious’.

Stapleton finished the concert’s main performance on one of his best-known covers, Tennessee Whiskey, inspiring a massive audience singalong.

Originally composed by Dean Dillon & Linda Bartholomew and recorded by David Allan Coe, Stapleton’s cover, released on his debut album Traveller, is now regarded as the definitive version. It appeared in the science fiction film The Midnight Sky and the pilot episode of TV Western drama Yellowstone.

After Stapleton performed it with Justin Timberlake at the 2015 Country Music Association awards ceremony, the duo’s live recording went on to become a chart-topping hit.

At the Brisbane concert’s finale, after the band bowed and departed the stage (and a third of the audience dashed out to try and beat the inevitable traffic queues), Stapleton returned alone to the arena. Spot-lit with his acoustic guitar, he joked, “You are not going to be able to talk tomorrow! Tonight I heard you singing notes that people haven’t heard before!”

Before launching into What are You Listening to (released in 2013, two years before his debut album), he revealed, half-joking, “This was the first song I had on the radio – it shot straight to number 48!”

The ballad is about a nostalgic man pining for a lost lover, speculating about the music she’s playing while he’s playing a song that reminds him of her. Below Chris Stapleton, thousands of fans held their mobile phones aloft with the torch lights on, resembling a sea of digital candles, sparkling like stars in the sky.

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Chris Stapleton, Brisbane Entertainment Centre, 28 Feb 2025. Photo: Alec Smart

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Set List

White Horse
Nobody to Blame
Second One to Know
Millionaire (Kevin Welch cover)
Devil Always Made Me Think Twice
Hard Livin’
Worry B Gone (Guy Clark cover)
What Am I Gonna Do
It Takes a Woman
Think I’m in Love With You
Mountains of My Mind
Whiskey and You
Arkansas
Parachute
Starting Over
Joy of My Life (John Fogerty cover)
You Should Probably Leave
I Was Wrong
Cold
Traveller
Fire Away
Broken Halos
Tennessee Whiskey (David Allan Coe cover)

Encore

What Are You Listening To?

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Chris Stapleton, Brisbane Entertainment Centre, 28 Feb 2025. Photo: Alec Smart

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Check out Alec Smart’s (@alecsmart_fotos) full gallery of this event HERE

Check out Samantha Meuleman’s (@samantham_shots) gallery of the Melbourne event (25th February 2025) HERE

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Chris Stapleton, Brisbane Entertainment Centre, 28 Feb 2025. Photo: Alec Smart

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Follow CHRIS STAPLETON
Website – Facebook – Instagram
X – YouTube – TikTok

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Press Release 11th April 2024 (below) HERE

Acclaimed US artist
CHRIS STAPLETON
announces second shows on his
first tour of Australia & New Zealand
in February and March 2025

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AMNPLIFY – DB