CMA Fest recap: Day 4

Hello everyone. Long time, no post. I'm not going to waste time with excuses that don't mean much anyway. The important thing is that I'm getting back into writing and what better place to start than with this year's CMA Fest? I hadn't been for a few years and this is the first year I've attended as a Nashville resident. I was pretty surprised by how different living here seemed to make things. I'm not even sure I can describe it, but it was an interesting experience. I really didn't get to do as much as I'd originally hoped, but I figured that I'd talk about the things I did and the shows I went to. I'll be breaking it up by day and event and also talk about a few others things. Like what could be improved upon and believe me, there's a lot.

Now I'm sure some of you looked at the post title and maybe got a little confused. No, you did not miss any posts. I've decided to do something a little strange and work my way backwards. Starting off with day four and ending with day one. Why? Well, if you were at the festival or if you've been reading about it, than you know that there was a fair amount of controversy surrounding the last night. I've seen some misconceptions about what exactly happened Sunday and I really wanted to address those. Give my take on the evening and share a few pictures. Suffice to say, CMA Fest did not end on the best note. It did not end the way I'm sure they thought and hoped it would.

So if that sounds like something you want to hear about, I invite you to sit back and relax, perhaps with a nice beverage of some sort, and keep on reading. Be warned: this is a long one.


I'll be getting to the night show momentarily, but first things first. I started my Sunday heading to the Riverfront for the Contemporary Christian show, which was presented by the Nashville Christian radio station K-Love. The show featured Joey & Rory, Matthew West and Ricky Skaggs. I loved that they did this! We definitely went to church at the Riverfront that morning. I love that this was included, it made for a very nice start for the last day.

Matthew West

Ricky Skaggs with Gordon Kennedy on guitar &Andy Hubbard on box drum

Next up was one of country music up-and-comers, Ms. Rachel Farley. I'd seen her previously open for Jason Aldean last fall and it was nice to see her again. I really think that she's going to be an interesting one to watch. She has good songs and a great stage presence. I've seen her being talked about as kind of a girl version of Jason Aldean and I definitely agree with that. I think we can expect good things from this girl. If you don't have it already, I recommend getting her debut single, "Ain't Easy", which you can find on iTunes.

We headed up to the new convention center to Fan Fair X after Rachel's set, where I had the pleasure of meeting GAC's Storme Warren. Very nice guy! I'd like to point out that while he didn't perform at CMA Fest, Chris Young signed autographs for five hours on Sunday. I didn't get to meet him again, unfortunately, but I think it was pretty great of him to do that. It's too bad that he didn't get to perform at one of the night shows. I would've much rather had seen him than a couple of the others, but I'll get to that in another post. Namely the one for day three. People who were at the festival or who know who played that night (Saturday) can probably guess who I would've had him replace. 

But that's day three; this is day four. Sunday's show started off with Pam Tillis and Lorrie Morgan singing the national anthem and then it was time for Lee Greenwood. He did a five song set, ending with the patriotic "God Bless the USA", which is easily one of the best patriotic songs ever written. This was my second time seeing Lee Greenwood and I have to say that I just love his voice. He sounded great! After his set, the host for the night - Storme Warren - introduced Kix Brooks who brought out a couple of veterans and announced that they were going to have houses built for them, courtesy of Operation Finally Home. One of the highlights of the festival, I'd say. Plus, it's always nice to see Kix. Though it would've been cool to have heard him sing something as well. I didn't get any pictures of him, but Gary Allan was next. He did a strong four song set which included his newest single "Pieces" and the previous single "Every Storm (Runs Out of Rain)". Pretty appropriate seeing as how there'd been storm warnings all day. More about those later on. 

Lee Greenwood

Kix Brooks

All right. Prior to Gary Allan's set, Storme Warren came out and said that there was a chance that he would have to come out over the next hour/hour and a half and tell everyone head to the concourse due to possible lightning. After Gary finished, Storme came back to announce that the storms were in fact coming and that the show would be shortened because of them. And here's the important part: he said that each of the remaining acts would perform a couple of songs and the wait between them would be shorter. This would ensure that we would get to see everyone and so no one would go home disappointed. Remember that because it's going to come into play later.

Next up: Brad Paisley. I'm going to start off by saying that the sound during Brad was pretty terrible. I didn't understand a word of the first song, "Karate", which featured Charlie Daniels coming out to join him. Charlie Daniels did a little snippet of "The Devil Went Down to Georgia", much to the delight of the crowd. 

Brad Paisley

Charlie Daniels

Brad then went into his second and final song, "Beat this Summer". Now, they'd spent the entire festival encouraging everyone to buy Brad Paisley's light show app. Telling everyone to open it up during this song and promising that we would all be blown away. Only problem was that the app only seemed to work for a small percentage of the crowd. I know it didn't work for me or anyone in my section. I think some people just turned on their flashlight apps on their phones. I was far from being blown away. I don't know, I was expecting more. Of course, cell phone service was really bad at LP Field so that may have been the problem and not so much the app itself. All I know is that said app was never mentioned again.

The Band Perry was scheduled to perform next, but they surprised the crowd by announcing the oh so cute duo of Lennon and Maisy. Perhaps better known as Maddie and Daphne Conrad, the daughter's of Rayna James on the TV show 'Nashville'. They performed a charming cover of "Ho Hey" by The Lumineers before introducing The Band Perry.

Lennon and Maisy

Like Brad Paisley, The Band Perry performed two songs: "Done" and "Better Dig Two". I'll give credit where credit it due: they got a great response from the crowd and sounded pretty good. Though to be perfectly honest, they're just a little too much for me. All the theatrics and whatnot. It doesn't seem natural to me. It's almost like you can see them thinking about what post they're going to do next. It keeps me from enjoying them as much as I'd like to. But based on the reaction from the crowd, I was in the minority. Not a bad set, but my least favorite of the night.

Now here is where things took a turn for the worse. Remember how they'd said that each act would do a couple of songs so no one would be disappointed? A couple, meaning more than one? A couple of songs, like both Brad Paisley and The Band Perry got? Imagine my, and everyone else's, surprise when Jake Owen came out and performed his latest single "Anywhere with You"and then left the stage. Yeah. We were promised a couple of songs by each act and Jake Owen only got one. The audience wasn't just surprised; they were outraged. Like at most concerts these days, they had tweets from the crowd scrolling by on the screens between acts and I'd say that more people were tweeting about Jake than any other artist. Carrie Underwood and Brad Paisley were a close second and third, but it really seemed like Jake got the most. For me, Jake was who I was looking forward to the most. Not to say I wasn't looking forward to them all, mind, but Jake was definitely who I was the most excited about. So to have him only get one song after previously being told everyone would get a couple was extremely disappointing. The CMA treated Jake very badly and the crowd responded by giving one of the loudest boos I've ever heard in my entire life. I say this as someone who grew up going to a lot of WWF/WWE events and that's saying something. 

Jake, to his credit, rocked his one song. It's a downright shame that he didn't get to do two like he should've. We wanted more Jake! He didn't seem too happy himself and he should've have been. Again, I cannot say how badly I feel he was treated. He tossed his guitar after the song and it hit the stage; some people are saying he did it on purpose out of frustration. I'm not convinced of that, though it certainly might have been true. Initially I thought that he was tossing it to a roadie or someone who just didn't catch it. All I know is that he didn't outright smash it like some are saying he did. I also want to add that Jake has handled the entire situation like the class act he is, rushing to defend Carrie Underwood when people started criticizing her. Why did she need defending? Well that brings us to part two of what I'm calling JakeCarrieStormGate 2013. But first, here's a couple of pictures of Jake.

Storme Warren

Have to say that I didn't envy Storme Warren at all! I took this picture as he addressed the crowd after Jake finished, getting the pleasure of coming out to the chorus of boos. The first words out of his mouth were "I know". He did indeed. I've seen some criticism getting thrown his way thanks to what happened next and I think it's completely unjustified. Storme doesn't deserve any of the blame; he wasn't the one making the decisions. He just got to announce them. He did assure the crowd that Carrie would get more than one song. Which she did. Four songs to be exact.

Carrie opened her set with her new single "See You Again" and then went into a baffling cover of "Paradise City" by Guns N'Roses. I'm not anti-cover; I only have a series devoted to dream covers. But that said, I think that if there's ever a place to not do covers it's at CMA Fest. Ignoring the fact that this show got cut short, each act only gets 4-6 songs. The rare act will get 7. There's no excuse for doing a cover. Don't get me wrong - Carrie sang the mess out of this song. She did a great job, it just frustrates me that she did it at all. 

I assumed that her set was done at that point. I was wrong. She went into "Remind Me', which of course meant that Brad Paisley came out to sing with her. I'll be honest: I don't like that song at all, but I did think they did a nice job with it. She closed out her set with "Before He Cheats".

 


Now remember how I said that she needed defending? I said so because people were unfairly blaming her for Jake only getting one song. Someone even accused her of demanding that he only get one so she could do more. She was quick to clear that up on twitter, saying that that wasn't true and that she did what she was told. Which Jake was also quick to confirm. I do not agree with how this whole thing was handled. However, I place the blame where it belongs: on the CMA and on ABC. I believe that both Jake and Carrie did exactly what they were told to do and I believe that Storme said what he was told to say. I believe that the CMA was more concerned about the TV special than they were about the fans. I believe that they handled the weather situation about as badly as they could have.

Speaking of the weather, from the way people are talking about it, you'd think there was some horrific storm going on. There was not. First of all, everyone knew about the storms all day. And anyone with a weather app on a smart phone knows that said storm was predicted to hit around midnight. Not only that, but as the night went on, reports came in that the upcoming storm was breaking up and would be less severe than originally thought. During the show, there was some heat lightning off in the distance that lasted for maybe ten minutes. And that's it. The sky was partly cloudy, but not a drop of rain fell for the entire show. In fact, not a drop of rain would fall until about two and a half hours after they made everyone leave the stadium. There was no bad weather; the show was not shortened due to bad weather. It was shortened due to possible bad weather. Now, I don't fault them for deciding to err on the side of caution and end the show early. Especially not after the Sugarland stage collapse. Rather, my issue is more with how it was handled. They should have stuck with what they said originally: that each act from Brad Paisley on would do a couple of songs. For all the talk about safety, they actually made the show go on longer than it would've had they stuck with the original plan. It was a very disappointing way to end the festival.

If you made it to this point, I both congratulate and thank you. I know it was a lot. Odds are this'll be the longest post of the recaps. Stay tuned for the rest!