What You Missed at the Country Music Awards

The 51st Annual Country Music Awards (CMAs) aired live on ABC last Wednesday, Nov. 9, at 8 p.m. from the Nashville Bridgestone Arena. The awards were hosted, for the tenth year in a row, by Carrie Underwood and Brad Paisley.

The awards were full of funny moments, tributes, and a whole lot of country music performances.

Eric Church opened the event with “Amazing Grace,” a tribute to those lost in the Las Vegas shooting, an event that shook the country music community. Church’s performance wasn’t the only tribute to Vegas: Paisley and Underwood also paid their respects in the opening monologue.

Underwood sang “Softly and Tenderly” in the closing memorandum with tears in her eyes. Country star Glen Campbell, who passed away in August, and Troy Gentry, who passed in September, were both included in those who were honored. Rascal Flatts payed tribute to Gentry by performing “My Town.”

The award show wasn’t all sad: both Paisley and Underwood kept spirits high with performances including “Before He Tweets,” a parody of Underwood’s “Before He Cheats,” poking fun at President Donald Trump, an act that has many country fans upset. The two sang, “and it’s fun to watch, yeah, that’s for sure / until little rocket man starts a nuclear war… and then maybe next time he’ll think before he tweets.”

Another thing that has country fans upset is that Garth Brooks, Entertainer of the Year winner, lip-synced during the awards.

Brooks said, “We made a game-time call on whether to sing to a track or lip-sync, and we decided to lip-sync it… My voice just isn’t going anywhere, and we wanted to represent country music the best we can.”

The night was full of surprises. P!nk went country…again! Singing her new song, “Barbies,” the song writes “all I want to do, is go back to playing Barbies in my room.”

Keith Urban also performed, singing his new song “Female,” a song he wrote about Harvey Weinstein and the brave women who came forward with sexual harassment allegations.

Winners for all of this year’s CMA Awards are listed below:

Entertainer of the Year: Garth Brooks
Single of the Year: Keith Urban, “Blue Ain’t Your Color”
Album of the Year: Chris Stapleton, From a Room: Volume 1
Song of the Year: Taylor Swift, “Better Man”
Female Vocalist of the Year: Miranda Lambert
Male Vocalist of the Year: Chris Stapleton
Vocal Group of the Year: Little Big Town
Vocal Duo of the Year: Brothers Osborne
Musical Event of the Year: Glen Campbell with Willie Nelson, “Funny How Time Slips Away”
Musician of the Year: Mac McAnally
Music Video of the Year: Brothers Osborne, “It Ain’t My Fault”
New Artist of the Year: Jon Pardi