Luke Combs, Murrayfield, Edinburgh review: 'truly stadium-worthy'
He may not be a household name in the UK, but US country star Luke Combs pulled off a Murrayfield gig with aplomb, writes David Pollock
Luke Combs, Murrayfield, Edinburgh ★★★
Kudos to North Carolina-raised country star Luke Combs for playing two nights at Murrayfield despite only having one Top 40 UK hit. Yet this is 2026, and there are other ways of measuring fame; Combs has had nearly 30 hits in the US, and all kinds of sources of online virality have brought him across the Atlantic.
Specifically, his 2023 cover of Tracy Chapman’s Fast Car has been significant. Its low-key presence at the start of the red-bearded, trucker-cap-wearing Combs’s encore brought a predictably overjoyed response among the young, Stetson-wearing crowd. Not your usual country cover, Combs introduced Fast Car as “in my opinion the best song ever written”, and here it made perfect sense.
He sings with the country twang of a man who made it in Nashville first, and his voice has a deep, lovelorn but hopeful quality. He’d regularly flag a song as being personal, most often about his ten-year relationship with his wife Nicole (the bubbly Houston We Have a Problem, the wistful Sleepless in a Hotel Room, the obvious wedding song Forever After All), but sometimes about his rise to fame from playing bars and wishing on a better day.
Midway through things got bigger and more boisterous, with brighter lights and flame jets starting up. A digital NASCAR car backdrop accompanied the rowdy Back in the Saddle, followed by the equally anthemic Must’ve Never Met You. An extended musician intro sequence brought short covers of Maroon 5’s She Will Be Loved, Aerosmith’s I Don’t Wanna Miss a Thing and a bass-heavy instrumental of Michael Jackson’s Billie Jean.
A significant chunk of the show felt like a concert hall set played to an oversized crowd, but the run-in was truly stadium-worthy. It included his Ed Sheeran collaboration (another way to get famous in the UK) Dive, the huge singalong When it Rains it Pours, delivered just after some unexpected drizzle, and the loveable, Bon Jovi-esque barroom rockers 1, 2 Many and Beer Never Broke My Heart, the latter with an odd, shot-chugging onstage guest appearance by Scottish rugby stars Zander and Matt Fagerson. Everyone, it seems, is a Luke Combs fan.
The Scotsman’s arts newsletter is now sent twice a week - subscribe today
Enjoying the Arts & Culture journalism on scotsman.com? Make it easier to find by selecting us as a preferred Google source
Want the latest Scottish headlines sent directly to your phone? Sign up to our new WhatsApp channel here
Comments
Want to join the conversation? Please or to comment on this article.