CMAs Highlights: Justin Timberlake, Chris Stapleton Give Red Hot Performance, Blake Shelton Takes Divorce Heat
Megastar Justin Timberlake and country artist Chris Stapleton absolutely dominated the stage at tonight’s CMA Awards with an 8-minute-long booze-themed superjam. They started with Stapleton’s version of “Tennessee Whiskey” and followed with a revamped rendition of JT’s “Drink You Away”.
The A-list audience also watched with dropped jaws, including Little Big Town, Zac Brown, Keith Urban, and many more. Miranda Lambert, who won her sixth consecutive Female Vocalist of the Year award, even wore him on her shirt.
Florida Georgia Line tweeted: “Now we have to follow that. Yikes!!!”
With that performance, Stapleton might have won the hearts of millions of viewers but he also won every award he was nominated for: Album of the Year, New Artist of the Year, and Male Vocalist of the Year. As he accepted the latter, the revered songwriter choked up a little.
The CMAs are considered Country’s Biggest Night so of course they also had to touch on country’s biggest gossip. Only hours before the CMAs began, representatives for Blake Shelton confirmed rumors that he is in fact dating his Voice co-star, and fellow divorcée, Gwen Stefani. His recent split with Lambert is still fresh, but that didn’t stop the CMAs from an easy target. Co-hosts Brad Paisley and Carrie Underwood set up the joke by talking about, “two people in this very room who we all know and love” before cutting to…Kermit the Frog and Miss Piggy. But after the audience laughed, Paisley went in for the (tasteful) kill, saying “on an unrelated subject, howdy, Blake”.
Another recurring winner of the night was another one of the year’s biggest songs, “Girl Crush” by Little Big Town which took home both “Single of the Year” and “Song of the Year”, in addition to a memorable performance.
The other other big winner of the night was, strangely enough, Star Wars. The opening bit featured good guys Brad Solo and Princess Underwood, along with bad guy Darth Vader, A.K.A. a masked Luke Bryan. Stranger yet was a cameo from original Trekkie William Shatner who dressed up as a Stormtrooper, presumably to make peace across the sci-fi superfan aisle.
For another exciting live show, check out the Live Nation channel on Yahoo for a special performance from Sara Bareilles. Along with some of her greatest hits, she’s exclusively performing songs from the Broadway musical “Waitress” - for which she wrote the music and lyrics. Watch it at 5p.m. PT, this Thursday November 5th right here.
