Everything You Missed on the ‘CMA Fest’ TV Special

On Wednesday, August 8,ABC aired its annual CMA Fest television special, covering many of the highlights of the four-day event which took place in June in Nashville. The festival, hosted by Thomas Rhett and Kelsea Ballerini, featured performances by some of the biggest names in country music, including Carrie Underwood, Luke Bryan, Florida Georgia Line and more.

Rhett and Ballerini returned to host the event together for the second year, with both stars performing during the special as well. Rhett performed his current single “Life Changes,” making his way through the crowd during the song, while Ballerini sang her single “I Hate Love Songs” from sophomore album Unapologetically.

Other performers included Keith Urban, Blake Shelton, Old Dominion, Brett Young, Jake Owen, Brett Eldredge, Cole Swindell, Carly Pearce, Dan + Shay, Luke Combs, Dustin Lynch, John Pardi, Jason Aldean, Chris Stapleton, Brothers Osborne, Darius Rucker and Sam Hunt.

Midland also delivered a performance of their song “Burn Out” from the nearby HGTV Lodge, which offered a more intimate setting in contrast to the thousands present at Nissan Stadium.

While many artists only scored one song airing on the broadcast, a few earned a double spot thanks to a duet, with Kane Brown getting screen time for his new single “Lose It” as well as “What Ifs,” his collaboration with Lauren Alaina. Dierks Bentley performed “Woman, Amen” ahead of his team-up with Dwight Yoakam for the icon’s “Fast as You,” and Florida Georgia Line delivered their current single “Simple” before bringing out Morgan Wallen to sing the latter’s “Up Down.”

Most of the performances took place on the main stage, but a few artists were brought out to a smaller stage in the middle of the floor to sing one song, including Pearce, Swindell, Owen and Hunt, who started his performance of single “Downtown’s Dead” in the stands before making his way to the floor, high-fiving fans the whole way there.

There were also plenty of moments that viewers didn’t see, including Shelton realizing midway through his opening number, “I’ll Name the Dogs,” that his microphone wasn’t turned on. The Voice coach quickly made the decision to start over, requesting a second introduction before re-entering the stage and running through the song with no problems.

Luke Bryan provided a fan-favorite moment when he shut down the weekend on Sunday with an extended setlist, performing 12 songs before telling the crowd he was being forced to stop. The American Idol judge also honored country icon Randy Travis, who was in the audience at the side of the stage, by performing Travis tracks “On the Other Hand” and “Diggin’ Up Bones.”

If you missed the special, you can watch the full event on ABC.com.

Photo Credit: Getty / Jason Kempin