CMA Fest 2013: Brad Paisley, The Band Perry, Jake Owen and Carrie Underwood

You are always in my mind, Taylor Nation.

Here at the Swift Agency, still a guy who may or may have not slept for twelve hours straight, we said goodbye to the music city yesterday but still have oodles of pictures and blog ideas to go through. On top of that, we have to get to more news updates so it’s time to send off CMA Fest in style.

In case anybody had doubts about it, CMA Fest did finish off with a bang. However, it was a rushed bang since a storm warning was in effect. For the safety of everyone, both attending, performing and working, everyone’s set was shortened.

Brad Paisley managed to perform a couple of songs on his set, including bringing out his guest Charlie Daniels. I actually was still finding my seat as this was going on so I couldn’t get a good shot of Charlie.

The Band Perry owned the stage. This group has risen from opener into full headlining status long before tonight. They’ve got a lot of crowd pleasing, boot stomping, sing-a-long clapping hits to get the entire crowd on their feet. They could’ve done a lot more with a lot more time but safety was on everyone’s minds that night. They still managed to warm up the crowd and it’s very hard not to declare them the best act of the night so I’m not resisting: they were.

Jake Owen has come a long way, and that’s why what happened last Sunday night seems so unfair. He had to shorten his set down to one song. This wasn’t his fault or Carrie Underwood’s. Everyone did what they had to do. The organizers did give Carrie the chance to play a longer set since she was the closing number and no more changes were expected –  but the mood on the stadium was that Jake was owed more than just one song and it’s hard to disagree with that. However, storms don’t have a schedule.

Whether it was the right call or things would have gone different it’s hard to say and easy to speculate, but the goal was achieved.

Carrie Underwood took the stage to close the show. I was glad to hear a couple of tracks from Blown Away, including See You Again which was a great song for that night. I don’t know about her choice to cover Guns N’ Roses’ Paradise City. She did sing Remind Me and brought out Brad Paisley for a duet. She closed her set with her hit Before He Cheats.

It’s all a little bittersweet, and I know I tend to overuse that word lately but there’s not better way to describe the end of CMA Fest. Personally, it was a bit of a roller coaster ride. If you’ve never done it, I hope you are in good shape. There’s a lot of walking, standing in line, not sleeping, skipping meals and just asking your fellow country music fans to slow down because you’re out of breath. Ok, that last one might be just me.

Up next… there’s still a lot of pictures to go through so expect a couple of more Nashville Diaries. The RED Tour is finally coming to Canada! The Princess in Red plays the Rogers Center in Toronto, Ontario on June 14.

Coming up on the Calendar!

• June 14 & 15: The Red Tour at Rogers Centre in Toronto, Ontario. On sale now. More information on Ticketmaster.ca.
• June 16: The Enchantress is nominated for the 2013 MuchMusic Video Awards. She is nominated for Your Fave International Artist or Group.
• June 21: Mallary Hope‘s Birthday.
• June 22: The Red Tour at Investors Group Field in Winnipeg, Manitoba. On sale now. More information on Ticketmaster.ca.

(Source: TheSwiftAgency.com)