AMAs 2019: Shania Twain Fans Left Scratching Their Heads at Opening to Her Final Act

Shania Twain fans were a bit confused Sunday night when the country music icon started off her American Music Awards 2019 performance with a medley of slow songs — including Post Malone‘s “Rockstar,” Twenty One Pilot’s “Stressed Out,” Taylor Swift‘s “Shake It Off” and even Drake‘s “God Plan.” But Twain, 54, kicked things up a few notches and didn’t look back when she transitioned into her own hit, “You’re Still the One.”

Donning a flamingo-pink ruffled cape dress, embellished orange bodice, fishnet tights and a curly half-up hairdo, Twain then ditched her bedazzled pink guitar and joined her gyrating backup dancers in a medley of hits like “Any Man of Mine,” “That Don’t Impress Me Much” and “Man! I Feel Like a Woman!” — much to fans’ delight, especially those who were confused by the laid-back, wordy start to the high-energy number.

Plenty of AMAs viewers took to Twitter to share their reactions to Twain’s first AMAs performance in 16 years.

But perhaps no one was enjoying themselves more throughout the performance than Post Malone, who was spotted clutching his plastic beer cup and singing along and dancing. Another star who enjoyed the already iconic performance was Taylor Swift, who ran onstage after Twain’s finale.

A few days ahead of Twain’s performance on Sunday night, she told USA Today that the eight-song medley would start with “a mashup of my favorite current [songs] that are not my own, and that will lead into ‘You’re Still the One.’ I’m going to do that whole section alone, just me and my guitar and a microphone. Then I’m going to break into a few of my hits that everybody knows and can sing along with. I’m a fan of doing the classics: Those are the moments that bring us all together and I never get bored of that.”

Sunday’s performance marked Twain’s return to the AMAs stage for the first time in 16 years after last performing on the show in 2003. Racking up countless accolades for her classic albums The Woman in Me, Come on Over and Shania Twain, she is the top-selling female country artist of all time, and was also the first woman to receive CMT’s Artist of a Lifetime award.

She made a legendary music comeback in 2017 when she released her first album in 15 years, titled NOW. It debuted at No. 1 on the Billboard Top 200 album chart, making it the first female country release to top the charts in more than three years. It also topped the Billboard Top Country album chart.

Twain will kick off her new Las Vegas residency in December.

Photo credit: Kevin Mazur/AMA2019 / Contributor / Getty