Luke Combs, Darius Rucker Lead Night 1 Top Moments – Billboard

After getting the Thursday evening Nissan Stadium crowd revved up with hits together with “My Give a Damn’s Busted,” and “A Lesson in Leaving” (which was beforehand a success for Dottie West in 1979), Jo Dee Messina provided new music—and a heartfelt look into what drives her today.

“The one thing that changed my heart was Jesus Christ. If you knew me 15 years ago and today, I’m a different person,” Messina instructed the group, as she welcomed Contemporary Christian music artist Ben Fuller to the stage for a music they wrote collectively.

“That will be a single soon,” he promised the group, earlier than closing along with her 1996 hit “Heads Carolina, Tails California,” an everlasting basic that has been additional revived over the previous 12 months or so, due to an interpolation of the music in Cole Swindell’s “Had Me at Heads Carolina.”

“I moved to Nashville 12 years ago this month to chase country music.. next thing you know is you are standing in the end zone at Nissan Stadium,” Jordan Davis instructed the packed viewers on Thursday evening. “I hope you know how grateful we get to call country music a job and we get to do that because of all of you.”

This marked his first efficiency at Nissan Stadium predominant stage at CMA Fest, and he got here ready with a powerful assortment of fan favorites together with “Singles You Up,” “Next Thing You Know,” “What My World Spins Around” and “Slow Dance in a Parking Lot.”

Before concluding his set along with his CMA music of the year-winning hit “Buy Dirt” (there was no shock Luke Bryan look this night), Davis did share a candy second with the viewers and praised his spouse Kristen, whereas noting they’re “due any day now” with their third baby.

Two-time CMA entertainer of the 12 months winner Luke Combs returned to the Nissan Stadium stage on Thursday night, having offered out the identical venue along with his personal headlining present simply weeks earlier than.

He stuffed his set with hits together with “Love You Anyway,” “When It Rains It Pours,” and “Beautiful Crazy,” which he introduced has been licensed Diamond.

Combs, who’s at the moment on a world tour and has 9 CMA honors to his credit score, additionally keyed his present standing as one in all music’s greatest hit makers, in any style, by performing his present prime 10 hit on Billboard’s prime 200 chart, a canopy of Tracy Chapman’s 1988 hit “Fast Car.”

“I remember hearing it in my dad’s truck when I was four years old,” he instructed the group, calling it, “one of my favorite songs of all time.”

When Billboard spoke with CMA Fest tv particular government producer Robert Deaton about this 12 months’s tv particular, in reference to the competition’s fiftieth anniversary milestone, Deaton famous that followers might quite a few collaborations, and pairings of artists from totally different eras.

The Thursday night lineup actually included just a few shock company–most notably when Luke Combs introduced out 18-time CMA Award winner Vince Gill to hitch him for a rendition of Gill’s 1993 hit “One More Last Chance.” Gill performed guitar and lent his excessive harmonies to meld with Combs’s granular vocals. As Combs welcomed Vince Gill to the stage, he known as the Country Music Hall of Fame member a “legend” and an “absolute hero.”

Ashley Cooke celebrated a number of profession milestones prior to now 12 months, together with signing a report take care of Big Loud Records and Back Blocks Music, and touring with Luke Bryan and Jordan Davis. She added to these milestones on Thursday evening by making her debut efficiency at Nissan Stadium as a part of CMA Fest.

“Last year, I was in one of those seats, dreaming of being here,” she mentioned, gesturing to the seats within the higher sections of the stadium.

She provided a music apropos for the night, a music she wrote with Will Weatherly and Brett Tyler, titled, “It’s Been a Year.” Though the music’s lyrical content material facilities on a earlier 12 months of each hope and struggles, Thursday evening served as an excellent better zenith second and Cooke made the many of the second.

She requested the viewers to “make my dreams come true” by utilizing their cell telephones to gentle up the stadium. They obliged and Cooke and her band members delighted within the second, singing because the stadium was softly aglow, with lights swaying throughout like hundreds of fireflies.

Carly Pearce first performed CMA Fest 13 years in the past, however on Thursday night, she made her debut on CMA Fest’s predominant stage at Nissan Stadium. It proved a golden second for Pearce, who took heartbreak and spun it right into a career-defining assortment of music along with her 29: Written in Stone venture.

Her CMA Fest set on Thursday night was crammed with songs from that venture, together with “Diamondback,” “Easygoing” and “Next Girl,” in addition to her prime 5 Country Airplay hit “What He Didn’t Do,” and her Grammy-winning, No. 1 Country Airplay hit “Never Wanted to Be That Girl” (sans her vocal and writing companion on the music, Ashley McBryde).

But it was Pearce’s collaboration with Jo Dee Messina that proved an empowering second, as they traded off melodies and harmonies on Messina’s clear-eyed, optimistic “I’m Alright.”

Instead of performing in entrance of the Nissan Stadium viewers from the elevated predominant stage, Darius Rucker–backed by a small band of musicians–as an alternative carried out on the bottom flooring, surrounded by hundreds of followers. The setting proved best for his set, the sparse musicianship highlighting the commanding grit of his vocals on “Fires Don’t Start Themselves,” but in addition ideally establishing for his endlessly catchy rendering of “Wagon Wheel.” As the music’s immediately recognizable fiddle melody floated over the group, Rucker and firm have been joined by hundreds including their voices to the refrain, reaching a zenith with a stadium-sized singalong.

“Thank you for letting me have two first singles in my career,” Hubbard instructed the group Thursday evening. Approximately a decade after his breakthrough single “Cruise” as half of Florida Georgia Line, Hubbard earned a solo primary with “5 foot 9.”

The crowd responded in form, screaming out the music’s poppy refrain. FGL followers have been presumably dissatisfied, as none of Hubbard’s earlier hits as a part of the duo have been included in his Nissan Stadium set, although it did present a stable glimpse into his personal energetic, uplifting model of solo music. He welcomed six dancers at varied factors in his set, which included “Tough,” “Inside and Out,” and “Dancing in the Country.”