The Best 2023 People’s Choice Country Awards Performances, Ranked – Billboard

The night’s hosts, quartet Little Big Town, launched the People’s Choice Country Awards with a spirited rendering of their 2006 breakthrough hit “Boondocks.” The group’s all the time on-point vocal harmonies had been luminous as they sang of tin roofs, entrance porches, gravel roads and taking pleasure of their rural roots.

As the music got here to an in depth, LBT’s members stepped off stage and into the aisles of the Grand Ole Opry House, shaking fingers with artists and different viewers members alike, together with HARDY, Wynonna, Dustin Lynch, Dan + Shay, Brothers Osborne and extra. While the viewers was noticeably dressed up for the event, this opening set signaled an open-hearted, upbeat get together ambiance.

Still, given the historical past of the Grand Ole Opry House stage, the group’s versatile vocals, and this show-opening second, maybe an sudden cowl of a rustic music traditional or a specifically revamped model of a newer hit would have given the present’s opening quantity extra energy.

The night’s closing efficiency wasn’t reside within the Opry House, however somewhat was a distant efficiency beamed into the printed, as Jelly Roll headlined a live performance on his Backroad Baptism tour. The PCCAs’ closing efficiency was Jelly Roll channeling unreserved, uncooked desperation into the rock-fused “Save Me.”

Donning a jacket that learn “Better With the Lost Than With the Found,” the soulful grit in his voice was on full show. Sparks fell to the stage, because the digital camera panned to viewers members crying, singing alongside. Still, this distant efficiency setting, an at instances seemingly muffled vocal, and the fixed toggling between viewers and performer at instances stored the total weight of the second from full translating for viewers.

Blake Shelton helped honor Toby Keith’s profession as a singer, the only songwriter behind a lot of his personal hits, a businessman and philanthropist. In addition to presenting the Country Icon award to Keith throughout the ceremony, Shelton carried out Keith’s 2002 hit “Who’s Your Daddy?”

His rendering was extra straitlaced than Keith’s burly, swaggering unique, however Shelton’s pure charisma and twang serviced the music mightily, particularly when he approximated Keith’s distinct vibrato whereas holding out the ultimate “your man” for nice impact. During the efficiency, Keith stood solemnly, arms usually folded whereas taking within the efficiency intently.

HARDY has had fairly the yr due to his Lainey Wilson hit duet “wait in the truck,” however on Thursday evening, he introduced the metal-rock fringe of his The Mockingbird and the Crow album to the revered nation music stage, marking his first-ever efficiency on the Grand Ole Opry House stage.

Appropriate for a music titled “Truck Bed,” his efficiency began at the back of a truck, and adopted as HARDY walked via the backstage of the Opry House to the stage. He carried out earlier than a backdrop of a nighttime city metropolis scene, with smoke plumes bolstering the hazy, angst-fueled second as he sang of an alcohol-fueled evening after getting dumped by his lover.

The genre-straddling Kane Brown introduced a laid-back, youthful vitality to his efficiency of “Bury Me in Georgia,” which just lately grew to become Brown’s tenth No. 1 Country Airplay hit. Sauntering throughout the Opry House stage, his molasses-smooth voice was in prime kind on a music that highlights his supple vocal vary.

“How we feelin’ tonight?” he requested the gang, as he walked throughout the Opry stage, singing a fiddle-laced music of future-focused legacy, delivered with centered conviction, and on a stage famend for each its previous and its star-surging current.

Dan + Shay made their first televised efficiency since letting followers in on their near-breakup, as they carried out the title observe to their newly launched album Bigger Houses.

The stage setup referenced the album cowl for Bigger Houses, with Dan Smyers and Shay Mooney seated on a small house construction, flanked by a white picket fence and their band.

The duo’s magnetic, upbeat efficiency model hasn’t dimmed, with Mooney’s always-illustrious voice in superb form, alongside Smyers’ {smooth} harmonies and relaxed guitar taking part in, because the duo sang about selecting to search out happiness within the second, eschewing the fixed chase for grander environment.

With her effervescent persona and love for vogue, Ballerini has turn out to be identified for her charismatic, upbeat performances through the years. But on the Opry stage, she supplied a strikingly soul-bearing efficiency of “Mountain with a View” from her heartbreakingly weak EP, Rolling Up the Welcome Mat. Dressed in a golden sparkly robe, and flanked by her band, Ballerini started the music whereas seated on steps, earlier than getting into the lit-up circle at middle stage, accenting the lyrics with elegant, flowing motion and deep stares into the digital camera as she musically chronicled the pinpointing of little moments that signaled a dissolving marriage.

Pearce just lately issued a heartbroken duet with Chris Stapleton in “We Don’t Fight Anymore,” however throughout the People’s Choice Country Awards, she made the astute resolution to focus her awards present efficiency on the Grand Ole Opry stage with a tribute to the style.

Brandishing a guitar and soaked in yellow lighting, Pearce supplied a love letter to nation music together with her debut efficiency of “Country Music Made Me Do It,” for the style’s indelible affect on getting her into — and, extra importantly, carrying her via — bother, providing consolation via dangerous choices. She laid the blame for teased-up hair, boozy nights and extra at nation music’s ft, her pure Kentucky twang and backing fiddle work a pure foil for this traditional-minded composition.

“’80s and ‘90s country music, y’all!” mentioned Wynonna, who was inducted into the Country Music Hall of Fame final yr for her work as a part of the mother-daughter duo The Judds.

Dressed in sparkly black, with lace gloves accenting her fiery crimson hair, Wynonna poured rock ‘n’ roll swagger and innate vigor into her efficiency of “I Saw the Light.” Half-singing, half-speaking, with energy flowing via the lyrics, she broke right into a defiant snort as she roared into “No One Else on Earth,” her signature growl shot via with chunk.

As she accepted the PCCAs Country Champion honor from presenters Brothers Osborne, she recalled her profession historical past of signing a report deal quickly after graduating from highschool, spending a decade touring alongside her mom Naomi as The Judds, forging a profitable solo profession after The Judds had been compelled to disband because of Naomi’s well being, and now navigating a brand new profession chapter after the demise of her mother.

“Regardless of what has happened to me, I show up and I show out,” she mentioned. “I looked the word champion up today and it says to do battle for others’ honor, and that’s exactly what I’m going to do. … The highs are high and the lows are low, baby, but don’t ever let them tell you who you are.”

Toby Keith carried out throughout the People’s Choice Country Awards, marking his first tv efficiency since his abdomen most cancers prognosis in 2021, and gave one of many night’s strongest, sobering moments.

After accepting his Country Icon honor from Blake Shelton, Keith supplied a wise-cracking one-liner that additionally nodded to the toll his most cancers battle has taken, saying, “I bet you all never thought you’d see me in skinny jeans.”

Standing on the microphone and wielding his trusty guitar, Keith appeared skinny and weak as he sang a convicting, solemn model of “Don’t Let the Old Man In,” which was featured within the Clint Eastwood film The Mule.

Art reflecting life, his unvarnished singing of lyrics similar to “Many moons I have lived/ My body’s weathered and worn” made the second potent and even harrowing, although his voice as heat, sturdy and nuanced as ever. He ended by pointing to the ceiling, because the viewers within the Opry House rose to its ft and cheered, and Keith’s spouse Tricia seen wiping away tears.