Carrie Underwood Earns High Praise From Shinedown: ‘She’s a Next Level Performer’

Carrie Underwood is one of country music’s reigning superstars, but she’s even earning high praise from at least one big rock band. Shinedown recently lauded the “Southbound” singer, and her massive Cry Pretty Tour 360.

“Check out [Carrie Underwood] on her #CryPrettyTour360 if you get the chance…” the Florida-based band tweeted after Underwood celebrated the opening of her Cry Pretty Tour 360. “She’s a total badass and next level performer! Much respect.”

Underwood previously promised to give fans everything she had, and then some, night after night on her Cry Pretty Tour 360.

“I think my favorite thing about performing live is just getting kind of lost in the music and the show,” Underwood revealed. “I have as much fun as hopefully everybody sitting out in the audience is having. I get to connect with the fans. I get to see people. The people that are streaming music and downloading music and buying albums, they’re finally in front of me.

“To get to have that moment with them is so much fun,” she added. “The lights and the costumes and getting to have moments with my band members on stage, I mean it’s all a lot of fun.”

Underwood’s tour, which also features plenty of special effects, including shooting flames, also has a stage in the center of the venue, giving her more access to each of her fans.

“I absolutely love my stage being in the middle of the arena,” Underwood confessed to her record label, UMG Nashville. “There is something about it that I feel so much more connected with every single person in that building. I feel like we’ve always done a great job of having big amazing stage sets and putting on a show, but there’s something completely different … I remember with the Storyteller Tour, I was like, ‘Ooh, I hope this is going to be okay. I’m changing everything up.”

“But there was just some connection happening,” she added. “I could see everybody in the arena, every single face. I could have individual connections with people.”

Underwood is joined on the road by Runaway June and Maddie & Tae as her opening acts. Her tour heads to Arizona, Nevada and California this weekend. Find dates and venue information by visiting her official website.

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