Eric Church, as you know by now, is all about giving his fans something memorable in concert and also about challenging himself. He’s proven it over and over, especially with his last two tours – Holdin’ My Own Tour a few years ago and this year’s Double Down Tour, performing over three-and-a-half hours (sometimes four) without an opening act.

When it came time to perform at Nashville’s Nissan Stadium for this year’s CMA Music Fest in June, he wanted to give fans something different and special than what he did just a couple of weeks earlier after setting an attendance record at the sold-out stadium show with no opening act. He returned to the venue with just him and his acoustic guitar and launched into an extended medley of 17 songs. He took the popular medley of hit songs and covers, under the opus of his song “Mistress Named Music,” during his regular Double Down Tour shows and decided to cover himself with a nearly half-hour medley…and it ended up being one of his favorite performances of his entire career.

“I never go into a show thinking about anything other than what will make this something for the people that are here they won’t forget it and they’ll never get to see it again,” says Eric. “I think the Nissan Stadium show was that; I think the CMA Fest show was that. One of my favorite performances of my career was that CMA Fest show.”

Some of the songs he covered included his most recent No. 1 “Some of It,” as well as “Pledge Allegiance to the Hag,” “Sinners Like Me,” “Smoke a Little Smoke,” “Record Year,” “Homeboy,” “Talladega,” “My Hometown,” “Cold One,” “Desperate Man,” “Creepin’,” “Springsteen” and “Mistress Named Music,” among others.

“I was having a bit of a brain thing where we just played Nissan and set the record, and in my opinion, the best show of our career, and then I’m back three weeks later, and I’ve got to figure out how to do something that’s gonna be memorable again,” says the North Carolina native. “That was the hardest thing earlier in the day. I started working on it – I could do this. I could do that. I thought about doing all covers. I thought about just changing it up completely. I went through all these things in my head, and finally decided that probably the best avenue, the best path was me just to go out and play ‘Mistress (Named Music)’ like I was gonna play a bunch of the stuff – that had taken on its own form during the tour, people knew about it, it’d become popular, they probably thought I was gonna do ‘Piano Man.’ And then to go in and cover myself for those 17 songs, I thought, as it grew and as I kept going, it’d be a really neat thing. The fun thing for me was during the day was figuring out, ‘How can I play for 30 minutes and not stop’ – and that was my set time – ‘…can I pull all that off and then get back to Mistress at the end?’  So, I had a lot of fun just trying to figure that out. That was a challenge, and I love stuff like that.”

He worked on it, with a stopwatch, that whole afternoon. He even sent his band home so he wouldn’t fall back on them.

” I was by myself. I didn’t let anybody know. At this point in time, nobody knew. And I was working on it, working on it, and I wasn’t sure it could happen. I’d think, ‘Eh,’ and I’d go back up and think about it for a minute, and go, ‘Eh.’ My fallback is I’m just gonna play five songs, and I’d go ba ck and work on it again. Finally I thought, ‘I can do this. This is gonna be, it’s gonna be something. It’s gonna be ballsy.’ (laughs) I went and told the band, ‘The best thing that can happen is you guys leave, because if you’re still here, there’s a chance I’ll go back and do the other. I need you to go home and then I’m on my own.’ And then I told ‘em what I was doing, and they thought it was cool. I think that’ll be neat. So, they all grabbed their bags and got in their cars and they left. So, at that point in time, we’re about an hour before the show and the band’s gone. The bus is empty.”

Eric, who is making his mark on the country charts again with his latest “Monsters,” is nominated for three CMA Awards this year. He’s up for Entertainer of the Year, Album of the Year for Desperate Man and Music Video of the Year. The 52nd annual CMA Awards will broadcast live from Nashville’s Bridgestone Arena November 13th at 8pm ET.