Opinion|The Heart-Lifting Magic of a Pop-up Concert

In the South, the school year typically begins in August. By now, the fried-chicken family reunions have come and gone, and the beach trips are fading from memory. And yet, here in the deepest heat of summer, the urge to get out of the city is more powerful than ever. Away from the shadeless streets. Away from the noise. Away from even the ordinarily friendly people, all of them irritable, as tired of the heat and the noise as you are.

So when I got an email from the country artist Tyler Childers — or at least from his marketing team — informing me of a “top secret pop-up show” to be held five days later somewhere in central Kentucky, I promptly registered for the drawing that would determine who could buy tickets.

Apparently, I inadvertently joined this mailing list when I preordered a vinyl copy of “Snipe Hunter,” Mr. Childers’s latest record, but I was thrilled to have a shot at buying those tickets. I figured my odds of getting them fell somewhere between low and subterranean — there was room for only 500 people, and Mr. Childers routinely sells out arenas and stadiums — but it was worth a try. A road trip through soybeans and cornfields to see one of my favorite country artists struck me as pretty good recompense for the dog days. In a time when so many country songs are written by committee, Mr. Childers is a one-of-a-kind original — an audacious, innovative songwriter who sings his heart out onstage.

One of the best things about having something to look forward to is having something to look forward to, but there is no anticipation involved in most pop-up concerts. There you are, eating your lunch, and suddenly Tyler Childers is standing in your favorite East Nashville sandwich shop, as he was last week, singing every track on his new record.

It’s hard not to love a pop-up show. The unexpected delight of it. The unearned gift of it. The Oh-My-God-I-Thought-It-Was-Nothing-But-A-Downhill-Slog-Till-Christmas-And-Yet-Look-Here-At-This of it. Suddenly there’s a rift in the ordinary, an interruption of patterns that makes you understand how miraculous the ordinary really is, how capricious its imaginary patterns.

I couldn’t believe it when I got the text telling me I’d hit the ticket lottery. I am just about the luckiest person I know, but for a lot of reasons, mostly existential, I stopped feeling lucky a while back. Here was a bit of luck I’d hardly had the heart to hope for.