Experience CMA Fest the 2020 way: From the comfort of your couch.
In lieu of a traditional festival TV show — organizers canceled the 2020 CMA Fest due to COVID-19 concerns — the Country Music Association and ABC team next week to broadcast "CMA Best of Fest," a three-hour prime-time program featuring more than a decade-and-a-half of past performances.
"CMA Best of Fest" airs Monday at 7 p.m. CST. Country singer and "American Idol" judge Luke Bryan hosts the program.
"CMA Best of Fest" digs into more than two dozen flashback appearances across 16 years from leading country music entertainers, including Dierks Bentley, Kane Brown, Tim McGraw, Luke Combs, Maren Morris, Blake Shelton and more. Additional guests include Peyton Manning, Rob Riggle and Rita Wilson.
It "was important to have something" that signified CMA Fest season, said Robert Deaton, CMA executive producer of the annual CMA Awards and CMA Fest television program.
"We knew ... there was no way for us to make it CMA music festival by doing a living room performance or smaller venue," Deaton said. "These tentpole-type events, the audience — whether they're aware of it or not — know it's that time of year."
Deaton, who spent a week exploring the CMA archives for the one-time special, continued, "You know the Oscars are in February. You know the CMA Awards in November. Country music fans know near the end of the summer, there's going to be a CMA music festival special. Our fans are diehard."
Read along for five can't-miss "CMA Best of Fest" performances, outlined by Deaton.
Garth Brooks (2017)
It wouldn't be a country music special without a little Garth Brooks.
Deaton pulled footage from Brooks' 2017 surprise appearance at Nissan Stadium, his first at CMA Fest since 1998. At the event where he once signed autographs for 23 hours straight, Brooks weaved a medley that aired at 13 minutes and 36 seconds later that year.
The solo set includes Brooks staples "Friends in Low Places," "Thunder Rolls" and "The Dance."
"It was like some of the best television that I've ever been a part of," Deaton said.
And it appears Brooks enjoyed his stadium-sized surprise, too.
"That’s Nashville, home of country music!" Brooks bellowed from the stage, per a 2017 Tennessean story. "Yeah! Are you kidding me?"
More: Garth Brooks stuns with performance at CMA Fest
Miranda Lambert (2007)
Miranda Lambert first doused Nissan Stadium with her brand of spitfire country in 2005, but it's the 2007 performance of "Kerosene" that fans see during the upcoming special.
By '07, Lambert had committed herself to the road, appearing at summer festivals and opening arenas for Dierks Bentley. She'd spent at least two years touring with "Kerosene," the standout title track of her seminal 2005 album that's still recited regularly by bar bands on Lower Broadway.
And, years before she became a regular arena headliner, Deaton said her on-stage command showed.
"To see artists like Miranda Lambert just completely control everything that's in that stadium," Deaton said, "she is so powerful and just take the audience and completely owns it."
Rascal Flatts and Little Big Town (2011)
Surprises? Check. Nostalgia? Check. Next up? A country music crossover.
Artists collaborate each year under the Nissan Stadium lights, often with ripping performances (see: Brothers Osborne performing "Hard Workin' Man" last year with Brooks & Dunn) or genre fluid duets (see: Kelsea Ballerini inviting The Chainsmokers on stage on the same night as the Osborne-Brooks & Dunn mashup).
For one collaboration, in 2011, Rascal Flatts and Little Big Town — a pair of hitmaking vocal groups — teamed for a meat-and-potatoes classic rock medley that included Boston's "Long Time" Kansas' "Carry On My Wayward Son" and Edgar Winter's "Free Ride."
That won't be the only classic rock take during "CMA Best of Fest," either. The show plays and encore performance of Carrie Underwood teaming with Joan Jett in 2019.
More: Keep up with the beat of Music City, sign up for our music newsletter.
Lil Nas X, Billy Ray Cyrus and Keith Urban (2019)
Billy Ray Cyrus wrapped his CMA Fest set in 2019 with the familiar twang of "Achy Breaky Heart" and walked off stage to thousands chanting for another viral hit associated with the offbeat star.
"Old. Town. Road. Old. Town. Road."
Lucky for country music faithful at Nissan Stadium, the wait wasn't too long.
Forty-five minutes later, haunting banjo plucks echoed through the venue as Cyrus returned to the stage — bringing with him megastar Keith Urban and Lil Nas X, the overnight sensation responsible for last year's biggest crossover hit.
Next week, an at-home audiences can relive the moment that Lil Nas X took his horse down the "Old Town Road" and straight to one of Nashville's biggest stages.
Luke Bryan and Darius Rucker (2020)
"CMA Best of Fest" offers one new performance — from Luke Bryan and Darius Rucker.
The CMA Award-winning pair performed a rendition of John Mellencamp's "Small Town" at an empty Nissan Stadium, Deaton said. He said it was a moment that reminded him never to take the festival for granted again.
"It was a reminder of why we love music so much," he said. "It was dramatic seeing them in a empty stadium, but it's so, so great because they were playing music ... and they were so happy."
CMA Fest returns to Nashville June 10-13, 2021.
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July 09, 2020 at 05:03PM
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'CMA Best of Fest': 5 must-see performances from upcoming ABC special - Tennessean
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