Tyler Childers played one of Summerfest 2024's biggest shows. He absolutely deserved it.

It was the first show announced for Summerfest 2024 − and it turned out to be one of the biggest.

Kim Kardashian may not have shown up for Tyler Childers' "Mule Pull" tour stop at the American Family Insurance Amphitheater Friday as she did for R&B superstar SZA last Saturday. But in terms of attendance, Childers may have drawn the bigger crowd, with every seat in the 23,000-person capacity amphitheater full at the start of his two-hour set.

That's quite a climb, since less than a decade ago, Childers was playing for just a couple hundred people in Milwaukee at the Back Room at Colectivo Coffee. Back then, no one, Childers himself, would probably expect he'd end up headlining some of the largest venues in the country. But a rabid thirst for the kind of authentic, traditional-minded country Childers specializes in − served with a hearty spoonful of bluegrass inspired by his native Kentucky − has propelled Childers (and other likeminded artists, like Zach Bryan) to surprise superstardom.

Friday night, Childers proved he was ready and worthy of making that leap, his showmanship far more magnetic than it was when he last played Milwaukee, at the Riverside Theater in 2019.

His show is much more polished too, in every way, kicking off with a dramatic, static-laced, channel-surfing intro on an old TV set on the center of the stage, with dramatic sound effects, spliced with sounds of crickets, swelling from the speakers. Sharp animations graced virtually every song on the handsome, living-room inspired stage − and even a drone could be seen pulling "Top Gun" like maneuvers over the crowd to film the first song.

And that first song − a powder keg cover of Charlie Daniels' "Trudy" − showed how much more powerful Childers' band has become. It came with not one not two but three waves of tasty jams − first among guitarists James Barker, CJ Cain and Jesse Wells, then later, a more simmering but equally tantalizing series of solos from Jimmy Rowland on keys to Chase Lewis on organ to Craig Burletic on bass. But then when Rodney Elkins set fire to the kit near the end, everyone joined together for a dazzling '70s soul-funk finish, the kind of showstopper any act blessed enough to possess this kind of musical firepower would opt to save for the grand finale.

Instead, Childers and company were just getting started. That "Trudy" jaw-dropper didn't even demonstrate the band's full musical arsenal. For subsequent song "Country Squire," Barker bounced over to a twangy pedal steel, and Wells picked up a fiddle, to really get fans' boots a scootin'. More musical textures would further emerge for "Percheron Mules" via Burletic's jazzy stand-up bass, Cain's plucky mandolin and, best of all, Rowland's zydeco-seasoned accordion. And while Childers let his bandmates do much of the instrumental flexing, he got in on the fun with a mean mug-flashing, soulful fiddle solo coming out of "Purgatory" − part of a mind-altering extended instrumental outro that began with alien-like electronic ambience, and culminated with Lewis' hands a stupefying blur as he dazzled with super-human speed on the keys − before somehow, ending the solo playing even faster.

Great as the band was, there were a couple moments where indulgence got the best of them. A winning "Whitehouse Road" deep in the set morphed into a momentum-draining psychedelic jam − complete with Rowland chiming "Hare Krishna" on a vocoder − that was more than a few people's cues to head on out and beat the traffic. And impactful as Elkins drumming was for "Deadman's Curve" − channeling the oft-sampled beat created by late, great longtime Madison-based drummer Clyde Stubblefield − the revved-up rock rendition of that song squandered the subtle, emotional devastation from that tune, with Childers' singing about a loved one, tragically addicted to drugs, he's unable to save from themselves.

But Childers, as a singer and showman, was far more engaging than his last (fatigued) time in town, aided by underhand lights that accentuated his expressions and enhanced his bristling, bluegrass holler for "Creeker," and he essentially transformed into a spirited Sunday preacher for "Rustin' in the Rain," the title track of his latest album. But Childers also proved that he could still accomplish spine-tingling intimacy − even in a packed venue with more than 20,000 people − excusing the band for four spellbinding solo acoustic songs that spanned from the swooning "Lady May" to the crushing "Nose on the Grindstone."

"There are 110 things that you can be doing right now, and this is the one thing you chose to do," a gracious Childers said Friday. "I appreciate that."

And out of some 600 artists that will perform at Summerfest this year, this show will go down as one of the best.

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S.G. Goodman, Adeem the Artist opened for Tyler Childers

Tyler Childers earned praise for telling a gay love story via the music video for his 2023 hit “In Your Love.” His LGBTQ+ advocacy continued Friday with a gay country artist and nonbinary country artist as his openers (plus some sharp soul and traditional country tunes and remixes from DJ Charlie Brown Superstar).Childers’ fellow Kentuckian S.G. Goodman dryly joked Friday that as an opener her obligation was to upset or bore the audience so they’d be elated when the headliner took the stage. With simmering originals like “Old Time Feeling” she failed that obligation, although anyone who happened to feel bored likely perked up when her song “Supertramp” slid into a sly version of Don Henley’s “Boys of Summer,” and when she leant her piercing voice to her starry-eyed signature “Space and Time” that Childers covered last year.Sporting black lipstick, cool shades, fingerless gloves and blue fingernail polish, Knoxville, Tenn.-based Adeem The Artist (minus some folk apparel flourishes) looked the part of an ‘80s rocker. But their songwriting, especially in this solo mode Friday, was more evocative of John Prine’s expansive spectrum, from the crackling wit of tongue-in-cheek tune “Womyn Who Bartend” to “Rotations,” a clearly personal heartstring-tugger about the passage of time written for their 6-year-old.

And both artists made return appearances during Childers' set - Adeem first for "Whitehouse Road," then Goodman for "Triune God."

Tyler Childers’ Summerfest setlist

1. "Trudy"

2. "Country Squire"

3. "I Swear (To God)"

4. "Deadman's Curve"

5. "Creeker"

6. "Percheron Mules"

7. "Rustin' In The Rain"

8. "All Your'n"

9. "Purgatory"

10. "In Your Love"

11. "Shake The Frost"

12. "Lady May"

13. "Nose on the Grindstone"

14. "Follow You to Virgie"

15. "The Old Country Church"

16. "Whitehouse Road"

17. "Honky Tonk Flame"

18. "Triune God"

19. "House Fire"

20. "Universal Sound"

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Contact Piet at (414) 223-5162 or plevy@journalsentinel.com. Follow him on X at @pietlevy or Facebook at facebook.com/PietLevyMJS.

This article originally appeared on Milwaukee Journal Sentinel: Tyler Childers crushes one of the biggest shows of Summerfest 2024