Review: Zach Bryan lights up the Wells Fargo Center in the first of two ‘Burn, Burn, Burn’ shows in South Philly

Zach Bryan songs are about pain and regret — and finding the faith to move forward. He sings them in an urgent, raspy voice, and the sound of his one-part country, one-part rock eight-piece band hasn’t been smoothed over in the least.

On Tuesday night, he played the Wells Fargo Center for the first of two back-to-back sold-out shows. The Okinawa-born, Oologah, Okla.-raised — and now Philadelphia-based — rising star named the tour after his song “Burn, Burn, Burn.”

That 2022 single ends on this cheery note, which like pretty much every word of all 22 songs he performed was sung along in unison: “So let me go down the line / We all burn, burn, burn, and then die.”

Given that seemingly fatalistic point of view, and Bryan’s reluctance to spoon feed his audience dirt road bromides that rule the country charts, what’s the reason for the rocket rise of the 27-year-old songwriter in the year and a half after an eight-year active duty stint in the Navy?

A yearning for the authentic — or what’s perceived to be — is part of it, for sure. Bryan’s presentation is unaffected and not slick. He comes across as thoroughly genuine. He might have set world records on Tuesday for saying “Thank you Philly” and “I love you guys so much,” the most times before, during and after each song.

Bryan made his first appearance on the stage — which was situated in the middle of a general admission floor — during the opening set by Minnesota souped-up bluegrass band Trampled by Turtles.

Holding his Gibson J-45 acoustic guitar and wearing a No. 23 Sixers jersey with his name on the back, he joined the band for his own “Late July.” The low key surprise was missed by many on the concourse waiting in the longest merch line I’ve ever seen at an indoor show.

(For those keeping score, 23 was most recently worn by Jimmy Butler in 2019, and before that by sharpshooting guard Lou Williams.)

Half an hour later, Bryan and band made their way through the crowd as Bruce Springsteen’s “Atlantic City” played. With a logo of a rider atop a bucking bronco above the stage, the band — which included fiddle, pedal steel guitar, banjo, and trumpet — began with “Open the Gate” from Bryan’s audacious 34-song album, American Heartbreak.

That song ventures into a hackneyed milieu — a country song about a rodeo rider — and turns it into something knottier and altogether more satisfying.

The Freudian drama with a rousing chorus signaled to the super-stoked crowd squarely in Bryan’s age cohort that they were in for the ride of their lives: “So open the gates, I’m here to prove that I’m better than my father was.”

Bryan was enthusiastically received at Willie Nelson’s Outlaw Music Festival last fall, after moving to the city earlier in the year. He’s continued to mushroom in popularity since, while expressing his Sixers, Phillies, and Eagles fandom on social media.

“A local dream of mine,” he wrote, “LETS GOOOO,” with his retweet of a SEPTA announcement saying the transit agency added extra local service to accommodate concert attendees.

Though anchored in Philly, what’s taken to be Bryan’s middle American-ness is clearly part of his appeal to conservative leaning country audiences, with his service as a third generation Navy veteran a salient resume feature.

Bryan has largely avoided the cultural war fray as he’s amassed an audience that overlaps with mainstream country stars like Morgan Wallen, Luke Bryan, and Americana stars such as Jason Isbell and Sturgill Simpson.

On Tuesday, he kept his sloganeering safe: “Go Birds!” At several junctures, however, crowd chants of “U-S-A!” transitioned into “Let’s Go Brandon!” and a site-specific variation: “Let’s Go Bryan!”

This despite the sneaking suspicion among many fans that Bryan might in fact be … a liberal. When George Floyd’s death in 2020 led to civil unrest, he tweeted: “If I was racially oppressed for hundreds of years …. I think I’d be pissed enough to riot too.” And in April he expressed solidarity with the trans community.

Along with his abundance of finely detailed, moving songs put across in a raucous rock and roll manner, another key to Bryan’s breakout successes is the unabashed spirituality that courses through his work.

There’s a presence of the divine in songs like “Godspeed” that’s not preachy or pedantic. It makes sense that Bryan’s biggest pop crossover collaboration yet — expect more, as he gets more hugely popular — is “Dawns,” with Maggie Rogers, the alt-pop singer who spent the pandemic studying at Harvard Divinity School.

Their stellar team up with its early morning metaphor was a highlight on Tuesday, preceding the mournful “Sweet DeAnn,” written for Bryan’s late mother. “Dawns” also paired off nicely with “Something in the Orange,” the star’s biggest radio hit, which uses the sunset to symbolize of a dying relationship.

That song was delivered with grace and subtlety. And Bryan performed it, as he did almost every song throughout the night, beginning on one end of the four-sided stage, then slowly moving to face the crowd in each quadrant, as his sharp, cohesive band played with verve behind him.

Throughout the evening, those seemingly glum songs had the crowd stomping its feet and standing. They were performed with life-affirming energy and conveyed a complexity and emotional substance Bryan’s fans are clearly craving.

“Burn, Burn, Burn” isn’t fatalistic after all, it turns out. It’s about feeling alone in a crowd, and searching for a true self in a world where “I see God in everything.”

Bryan closed his set with that song, then brought all six members of Trampled by Turtles on stage with his band for an encore of “Revival,” from his 2020 self-released album Elisabeth.

The song pulled a 14-strong community together while name checking Johnny Cash, Jim Beam, and Merle Haggard over a rousing 10-minute celebration that showcased each band member. “Gather round the table boys,” Bryan sang, “Bring your shame, I’ll lose my voice.”

Hardly: He was leaving it all on the floor, but his voice was still ringing out, loud and clear.