All My Homies Hate Ticketmaster (Live from Red Rocks)

For someone who has only been at this for a couple years—he was still in the Navy until October 2021—Zach Bryan knows how to work a crowd. But getting nearly 10,000 people to shred their lungs shouting along to every word of your songs for over an hour and a half *outdoors during a snowstorm* is a very particular level of stardom. This Christmas gift of a live album, recorded at the end of Bryan’s 2022 tour, caps off a year that saw Bryan’s triple-LP major-label debut *American Heartbreak* transform the prolific Oklahoma singer-songwriter from spirited upstart with a dedicated following to genuine supernova. Recorded on a frigid, snowy November night at Colorado’s hallowed Red Rocks amphitheater, the set kicks off with a convocational tribute to an artist who named himself for the nearby Mile High City (John Denver’s “Country Roads”) and continues through Bryan’s already formidable catalog, which includes two self-released LPs, two EPs, and a fistful of loosie singles. The cohesive victory-lap set feels like a snapshot of a veteran artist playing well-worn classics at a mid-career peak, confidently blazing through rave-ups like “Open the Gate,” “Heavy Eyes,” and “Billy Stay” alongside slow-burn heart-wrenchers like “\'68 Fastback,” the elegiac “Sweet DeAnn,” and the unexpectedly apt “Snow.” But even more than providing a showcase for Bryan’s vivid storytelling and bottomless charisma, *All My Homies Hate Ticketmaster* (the title nods to Bryan’s sympathetic tweets during November 2022’s Great Taylor Swift Eras Tour Ticket Sale Debacle) makes the case for the live album as an essential document rather than a rote fans-only cash-in or easy contract-fulfiller. As strong as Bryan’s songs and performances are on record, they can’t, and shouldn’t, be separated from the context of their natural intended habitat—played in front of thousands of people belting every carefully crafted word right back at him in reverent, revelrous unison.

Released without fanfare on Christmas Day 2022, All My Homies Hate Ticketmaster (Live from Red Rocks) documents Zach Bryan's final show of 2022, a concert held at the fabled Red Rocks venue in Colorado in early November.