CMA Fest 2024, Friday Night: Top Moments

Dasha played her first stadium gig on Friday night and she made the most of it, turning in brief-yet- impactful two-song performance on the platform stage, surrounded by audience members. She offered up her global hit “Austin,” bringing a defiant, line-dance groove perfect for a stadium packed with boot-wearing revelers.

“I wrote this song last year and it changed my life,” Dasha said. Indeed.

Texas native Pardi prowled the far reaches of the massive stage with swagger on Friday night. He launched into hits including “Dirt on My Boots,” “Head Over Boots” and “Heartache on the Dance Floor,” bolstered by careening rock guitar and sonic slabs of fiddle. Pardi’s own music puts his ’80s and ‘90s country inspirations on display, but his set got an extra shot of ‘90s country bona fides when he welcomed triple threat guitarist-vocalist-songwriter and four-time CMA Award winner Clint Black to the stage, ratcheting the crowd’s excitement, which surged another notch. Calling Black “one of my heroes,” Pardi joined Black for “Killin’ Time,” with the crowd singing along as if the heartbreaker hit had been released in recent years, not more than three decades ago.

Little Big Town celebrates 25 years as a group this year, and made a surprise appearance on Friday night, bringing in a moment of sultry angst when they performed their hit “Girl Crush.” Flanked by her bandmates Kimberly Schlapman, Jimi Westbrook and Philip Sweet, Karen Fairchild offered up a flawlessly pleading lead vocal, bolstered by the group’s signature swirl of tightly-stacked harmonies. Though their appearance at Nissan Stadium on Friday night consisted of only one song, this group is always a standout.

Appearing on the Nissan Stadium’s main stage before a backdrop of columns of light, Ballerini took fans on a trip down memory lane during the initial moments of her set with a trio of songs from her first album: “Love Me Like You Mean It,” “Dibs” and “Yeah Boy.” From there the Knoxville, Tennessee, native showcased a decade of artistic growth with songs from her recent project Rolling Up the Welcome Mat.

Calling her life “unrecognizable” from what it was two years ago, she acknowledged that she’s “had some hard things to walk through,” but maintained, “I’ve never been so proud to just be exactly where I’m at.”

“We are in earshot of the penthouse,” she hinted, offering up an emotionally cathartic performance of songs from that Grammy-nominated set, starting with the breakup anthem “Penthouse.” Arriving at the pivotal lyric “You got half,” the crowd screamed along with gusto, as they did when she offered up lyrics from the “healed version” of the song, with women in the crowd cheering to the freeing lyric “Now I don’t care where you’re sleeping.” She offered a double-punch of heart-wrenching songs with the blistering callout of “Blindsided,” as the crowd poured its pain and venom into the sarcastic line “Yeah, sure, OK.”

“Well that was therapy,” she quipped.

Texas native Johnson launched his set with a tribute to the Lone Star State in “That’s Texas,” turning Nissan Stadium into a massive honky tonk for a night. A tribute to The Charlie Daniels Band followed via a rendition of “Long Haired Country Boy” (a staple in Johnson’s live show) as did renditions of his current single, the sterling ballad “Dirt Cheap,” and a fist-pumping performance of his first Billboard Country Airplay No. 1, “’Til You Can’t.”

But one of the defining moments of Johnson’s set came when he teamed up with four-time Country Airplay chart-topper Jelly Roll for their heart-tugging ballad of remorse that leads to essential life shifts in “Whiskey Bent.” Solid songcraft, plus two of country music’s most expressive, unfiltered vocalists made for one of the night’s most engaging moments.