Cody Johnson achieves headlining country superstardom at Nashville's Bridgestone Arena

Cody Johnson's two-decade-long rise to mainstream country industry success now includes achieving the most tickets sold by a debuting Bridgestone Arena headliner.

The capacity-packed downtown Nashville venue was raucously entertained by artists playing on a stage sparsely set with big screens overhead -- a nod to forever genre inspirations Garth Brooks and George Strait, who continue to play arenas and stadiums similarly.

Dillon Carmichael, Justin Moore and Johnson's combined 50 years of mainstream experience filtered through songs like their respective hits "Son of A," "Small Town USA" and well, the entire second half of Johnson's two-hour headlining set.

The veteran recalled years of playing marathon, cover-driven honky-tonk nights and Strait's ability to pull a magnificently solid vocal performance from his starched button-up shirt sleeves long into a musically dense set like a barnstorming magician.

"Everyone said we wouldn't make it here, but yet, we did," Johnson told The Tennessean following the concert.

"I, along with my band, team, label and fans, have cultivated success driven by a grassroots belief in a love of the power of country music."

Here are many other takeaways from Texas-born Johnson's maiden voyage as a touring Nashville superstar.

He's assuredly part of a new era of arena and stadium-headlining country superstars

Johnson's greatest victory of his evening at Bridgestone was establishing himself as country music's latest dependable arena headliner of the 2020s.

In short order, any billing featuring the Big Loud-signed trio of Morgan Wallen, HARDY and ERNEST, or even Zach Bryan, Luke Combs, Jelly Roll and Bailey Zimmerman, will soon be expected to fill football and soccer stadiums worldwide.

This leaves a lucrative 25,000-seat landscape available for artists like Johnson, Kane Brown, Jon Pardi and Lainey Wilson -- with Jordan Davis, Parker McCollum and Nate Smith continuing to surge toward that level of acclaim.

How did CoJo Nation arrive at Bridgestone Arena?

Notably, Johnson's shocking surge can be cast as precisely that.

Twenty years ago, he was a teenager raised in the church who sneaked out to a nondescript marina sandwiched between the dirty banks of the Trinity River and a cemetery, Dollar General and police station in his hometown of Sebastopol, Texas.

In the following decade, personal victories included the same father who busted him for sneaking out of the house, becoming his touring band's first bass player. Then, after three years, he became such a vaunted act that he replaced his father in his band and on the strength of six independent albums, became a Houston Livestock and Rodeo Show performer and the No. 1 independent -- and primarily Texas and Red Dirt region-based -- country act in America.

However, when he played in Nashville then, he could barely sell the same number of seats as in the tiny venues he was strongly advised not to play as a teenager.

In the past decade, streaming's surge has democratized the music industry by placing a unique onus on acts like Johnson, with rabid, consumer-driven and independent-minded fanbases that are best served by releasing album-driven work into a touring-driven marketplace.

Johnson wears his heart on his sleeves and bears his soul for the world to witness

Johnson's Bridgestone set -- as compared to the one he played at FirstBank Amphitheater in Thompson Station, Tennessee, 18 months ago -- was not just one played in front of 50 percent more people and bearing 75 percent different material.

More importantly, Johnson -- like Jelly Roll, another unexpected Bridgestone headliner selling out the arena -- has been encouraged by achieving CMT and Country Music Association Award-winning success to double-down on honest songs steeped in tradition but also bearing the feeling of being lived through and beyond that familiarity.

Songs like "Dear Rodeo," "Human," "Til You Can't," and new album tracks like "Leather" and "The Painter" are best delivered with Johnson's self-confidence leaking like blue-collar sweat from his pores.

"Decent doesn't cut the mustard" is what Johnson told fans was the standard he was attempting to evolve past in 2022. Johnson and his band's work has grown from being driven by "heartfelt motivation" to being the sonic equivalent of a firm handshake and earnest hug between the stage and crowd.

That becomes obvious when he plays "Human" back-to-back with "God Bless America."

"We're doing this thing called life, together," noted Johnson before singing "Human," a hit song about learning how to be a better person whose ability to embrace someone's truth supersedes his desire to want to burn the bridge between them.

Then, he sermonized to the crowd before "God Bless America."

In an election year predicated on "dividing Americans on every issue," he wanted first to show unity between the police officers (Johnson himself is a former corrections officer), firefighters, first responders and military in attendance at Bridgestone. Then, while those cheers were present, he looped in that he cared more about "red, white, and blue" than the color of someone's skin, who they voted for, their religious beliefs, or their gender.

The moment received a loud ovation.

Johnson's timelessly soulful catalog underpins his hit songs

Alongside being a great singer of songs for a sea of Resistol and Stetson-hatted devotees, Johnson is also quite the soulful crooner and pop musician.

Unlike other Johnson tours, his first hour onstage in 2024 highlights his now peerless abilities as a crooner and arranger of timelessly pop-aimed material.

"Nothin' On You" arrives as Johnson's tenor bridges East Texas and downtown Memphis. As well, the tinges of Allen Toussaint's (or Glen Campbell's, depending on the day) five-decade-old "Southern Nights" make "Work Boots" blue-collar funk feel more like sawdust dance hall than urban disco dance floor. Also, hear Johnson, Jake Mears and Joey Pruski playing triple guitars at the front of the stage mid-concert and it's Skynyrd, eight minutes deep into "Free Bird" vibes.

By signing Johnson, Warner Music expanded the flexibility of the Nashville establishment. It was Johnson's 20 years of experience that enabled him to establish a catalog judged by a soulful standard broader than but inspired by, Music City's stereotypes.

Both these notions combine to establish the fundamentals that underpin his calling cards of forthcoming success.

Guests establish the strength of Johnson's ties to country music's past, present and future

Cody Johnson has yet to share a headlining concert stage in Nashville with Reba McEntire.

In 2022 and 2024, CoJo sang "Dear Rodeo" alone. Jelly Roll -- who, like McEntire -- was in Los Angeles for Grammy week, was also not present to sing their duet "Whiskey Bent" as an encore.

However, having Brooks & Dunn sing their Leather album duet "Long Live Country Music" and Randy Houser, fresh from an international flight from Australia, return to sing "Mammas Don't Let Your Babies Grow Up to Be Cowboys," somehow felt much more authentic to the journey Johnson took to Bridgestone instead of reflecting the continued multi-platinum and award-winning success he's staring at in the future.

Moreover, in a redux of a moment from the Grand Ole Opry a night prior, having his young daughters Clara Mae and Cori onstage to sing a cover of "Dean Martin and Ricky Nelson's duet "My Rifle, My Pony and Me" from John Wayne star vehicle 1959 western "Rio Bravo" meant more.

Rare is the 2020s-era country performer able to tie the genre back to a moment before the regular advent of color television. However, Johnson -- and now his daughters, who know no life history before the 2010s -- are as authentic to maintaining a lifeline to country's century-long traditions as advertised.

His resolve is best summed up in a statement he bellowed from his Bridgestone Arena headlining stage-as-pulpit.

"God put me on this Earth to make country music country music again."

This article originally appeared on Nashville Tennessean: Cody Johnson achieves headlining country superstardom at Nashville's Bridgestone Arena