11 performances left. Talking about six performances this time and then will do the remaining five in the next one. Jumping right in.
I'm going to start off by focusing on the performances by all the nominees for New Artist of the year, starting off with Brantley Gilbert and his performance of "Country Must Be Country Wide". I'm going to be honest and admit that the jury is out on him for me. His fans seem to be an interesting and oddly defensive breed and I can't get a feel for who he is as an artist just yet. Sometimes I feel like he's trying too hard to be other artists instead of developing his own unique identity. I want to see him be Brantley Gilbert, not a copy of another person. He has definite potential; I just don't know what to think of him yet. I will be seeing him with Eric Church in a little over a week and am looking forward to it. I think seeing him perform will help. As far as this performance, I thought he sounded pretty rough. And I mean rough as in I wonder if he wasn't feeling well that day; his voice sounded pretty scratchy to me. The fire was cool, but the effects and general set up were a little much at times for me. Not a bad performances by any means though.
Moving on to the guy who ended up winning, Scotty McCreery with his performance of "Water Tower Town". He and Brantley are very different stylistically, but their fan bases are remarkably similar. Just something I've nothing in recent weeks. Meanwhile, I like the song, but the performance was a bit on the frantic side. It felt like he was trying a little too hard and it was messing with his vocal a bit. A problem a few people had. He has some not so great habits that I expect will get broken as he develops as an artist. For all the complaining I've done about the number of performances, I think that the new artist performances were a little short - it seemed like once they really started to take off, they ended. And I found that to be true for each of them. That may have been the reason it felt frantic to me. I did like how they thought to put an image of a water tower on the screen behind him.
Next up: "Storm Warning" by the guy I've recently dubbed as the Justin Bieber of country music, Hunter Hayes. I just saw Hunter at the Opry earlier this month and the reaction he got was absolutely insane. I've never seen the front get so flooded with people or heard screams that loud at the Opry before. It was madness. This is another performance that felt slightly frantic to me, partly due to the time he got and it seemed like he sped it up some. I don't know, it just seemed faster than usual at parts. He needs to watch his annunciation at times, but overall I thought he sounded pretty good.
Switching gears to focus on the only performance by a female artist in this post: "My Heart Can't Tell You No" by Sara Evans. I really believe that Sara is one of the most underrated singers in country music. She has such a great tone to her voice and for whatever reason often gets overlooked. That said, there were something off about this performance and I can't put my finger on what that was. She didn't seem quite like herself to me. The overall look of the stage was kind of odd in a way that almost worked, but just didn't for me. Vocally, it wasn't her best, but she still sounded good for the most part.
I feel like I'm flying through these, but after the length of the last post that's probably a good thing. Blake Shelton's up next with his performance of "Drink On It". So, I'm a big fan of Blake's, but this song isn't a favorite of mine. I don't dislike it; I just think it's one of his weaker songs. Really liked the lighting during this and thought it was a pretty strong vocal. I come to expect that from Blake. I really don't have much else to say about it, other than that I thought his band sounded great as well. Solid performance.
I'm going to wrap up this post with my thoughts on the performance by the newest member of the Grand Ole Opry, Keith Urban. He sang "For You" and I think I can safely say that he had the strongest beginning with the video snippet they showed prior to the song starting. That was a good choice; reminds everyone of exactly what the song is about which I like. In watching it again, I often find myself watching the video screens behind the band. It's almost like the band took second fiddle to the video in this case. For me at least. But speaking of the band, I thought they sounded great. Keith Urban's band is among my favorite backing bands; they're just so strong and spot on. As far as Keith himself is concerned, I just love how much he puts into his singing. He always seems to be the proper emotional place for each song he sings. Is that an odd comment? It felt kind of odd when I was writing it, but I'm sticking with it. This is a skill that not everyone has and it goes a long way in selling the lyric. A lot of artists are good at this and I'd place Keith among the best. Great vocal and delivery here. This is among my favorite performances from the show, I think.
And that's it for this time! Going to try to get the last part up later tonight or tomorrow to finally be done. Five performances left! The nominees for the CMT awards just got announced and voting is underway, so be sure to head over to cmt.com and vote for your favorites. Thanks for reading!
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