SANTA CLARA, Calif. — Most major artists—the ones who are successful enough to fill a stadium—choose to do so in order to share a stadium-sized artistic vision or concept. Country star Luke Combs went in the opposite direction on his Growin’ Up and Gettin’ Old Tour, which arrived at Levi’s Stadium on Friday for the first of a two-night stand.

Combs came up playing bars, and so on his tour, he performed like all of Levi’s was just a bar with 40,000 filing in through the doors. The only thing that felt oversized was the stage and its huge video screens (which mostly only showed what was on the stage). There were no lasers, fireworks or confetti. Nor is Combs an overzealous performer, jumping or flinging his microphone by the cord. That left the music, the songwriting and his voice as the center of attention for his entire 90-minute set.

The songwriting and his voice, a gravelly North Carolina drawl, are Luke Combs’ keys to success. The songwriting is personal and familiar; the voice is warm, inviting and enough to convince you that he cares. And that has translated from bars to arenas (he played at Chase Center in 2021), atop festival bills (he headlined BottleRock in 2022) and now even stadiums.

Most of the songs on this tour aren’t from Combs’ most recent albums, 2022’s Growin’ Up and 2023’s Gettin’ Old, but from his first two, 2017’s This One’s for You and 2019’s What You See Is What You Get. It’s a smart bet considering many of the 40,000 at Levi’s likely weren’t on the bandwagon as he was getting started.

Whether he and his talented band were powering through rockers like opener “Must’ve Never Met You,” the hit “Hurricane” and “Cold as You;” tender ballads like “Houston, We Got a Problem,” the mandolin-accented “The Man He Sees in Me” (written about Combs’ son) and “Forever After All;” or country stompers like “When It Rains It Pours,” he sang with conviction and his voice cut through music, always in front of the mix.

Much of the show was scripted, down to the stories Combs told between songs, but it was still endearing to hear his explanation for why he latched onto Tracy Chapman’s “Fast Car” to learn guitar as a 21-year-old college dropout living above a bar and Dominos Pizza joint. The song felt even more special on this night since the day prior, it won the Single of the Year prize at the Academy of Country Music Awards. Of course, he didn’t even mention that.

Wearing a red 49ers cap, black shirt and jeans, Combs walked the width of the stage during “She Got the Best of Me,” which took nearly the entire song to accomplish as he stopped to belt to fans close by. And during the following tune, “Lovin’ on You,” he had his trusty blue beer cup in hand, spilling a little every time he’d raise it up to the audience. Appropriately, attendees were given a choice of one of three songs the band would play on this night—through an online poll—and the winner was “Beer Cup.”

Less appropriately, there seemed to be an unusually higher-than-average percentage of inebriated attendees at this concert. Everywhere we turned, someone was stumbling, falling or needing help to remain upright.

Combs spent much of the show wandering the stage, which included a forked catwalk that all four of the show’s openers enjoyed as well, pointing to fans here and there.

One of the quieter moments came during “This One’s for You,” which began with just him on a green semi-hollow body, letting his singing stand out even more. The crowd appreciated him name-checking San Francisco in the song. The band rejoined him on “Going, Going, Gone,” with its peaks and valleys.

Other highlights include the slow-chugging yet heavy “My Kinda Folk”; a covers medley that doubled as the players’ introductions, which included bits of Train’s “Drops of Jupiter (Tell Me)” (not as a special nod to the Bay) and Shania Twain’s “Who’s Bed Have Your Boots Been Under”; and a cover of  Ed Sheeran’s “Dive” that sounded little like the original and had an on-point bluesy guitar solo. And the strongest performance of the night may have come during “Where the Wild Things Are,” which showed Combs and his band shifting between country, pop and rock.

In place of a visual extravaganza, Combs built a lineup of four opening acts (four others will perform on Saturday) that gave the day a music festival feeling.

Cody Jinks and his band had the featured slot, playing for about 40 minutes. Dressed in all black, with a black Telecaster, and a salt and pepper beard that reached a third of the way down his shirt, Jinks looked like a lost member of ZZ Top. And while Jinks started with menacing slow rocker “Fast Hand,” the song soon picked up steam and turned into a frenzied jam session.

After trading licks with the band’s guitarist—whose beard was nearly as long—on melodic Southern rock song “David,” Jinks went right into “Ain’t a Train.” The latter song was tinged with pedal steel and colored by blistering guitar solo. The band kept the energy up on the rollicking “Change the Game” before pumping the breaks with forlorn ballad “I’m Not the Devil” and several mid tempo country tunes like “Outlaws and Mustangs” and “Loud & Heavy.”

West Virginian Charles Wesley Godwin showed off his own brand of Southern rock. Though he wore jeans, a striped button-down shirt and a red bandana tied around his noggin, Godwin could have passed for a hard rock artist had it not been for the pedal steel and stand-up bass players in his band.

He opened with the crunchy “Cue Country Roads”—his own song, though he also closed with John Denver’s “Take Me Home, Country Roads,” which got a loud singalong going. Between the two, he delivered the rocking “The Jealous Kind,” “Another Leaf” and “Blood Feud,” softer ballad “Miner Imperfections,” which he said was about his father, and country tunes “All Again” and “Family Ties.”

In a lineup of rockers, Iowa native Hailey Whitters stood out as the artist that leaned most into country music. Wearing a red and white checkered dress and matching handkerchief over her hair, she and her band kept the tempo high during their seven-song set. Whitters danced around the stage and the catwalk for uptempo tunes like “Tie’r Down” and a fast-paced but sadly shortened rendition of “Jolene.” She played guitar on some songs like “Plain Jane,” but that didn’t stop her from skipping around.

“Do we have any rowdy country-ass boys here tonight?” Whitters rizzed before kicking into “Boys Back Home.” Then during “I’m in Love,” she joined her bandmates on the catwalk for a jam session. She rounded out her set with “Everything She Ain’t,” introducing the song as her big break in the country music world after 12 years of laboring away to get noticed.

Texas quintet The Wilder Blue opened the show squarely before dinnertime, kicking off with a folky and soulful “Star-Spangled Banner.” The band rolled right into the uptempo and twangy “I’m Your Man.” The highlight of its set was “Seven Bridges Road,” which the band had recorded with Combs. It began with beautiful harmonizing before taking on a decidedly more rock flavor.

“Dixie Darlin” felt homey and warm, and “Wave Dancer” meditative. The band rounded out its short performance with the barn-burning “Ghost of Lincoln.”

Follow editor Roman Gokhman at Twitter.com/RomiTheWriter. Follow photographer Sean Liming at Instagram.com/S.Liming.