Shaboozey proved there’s more to his musical palette than “Bar Song (Drunk)” when he took the stage at the 2024 Country Music Association Awards on Wednesday (November 20). The singer’s iconic song has spent 18 consecutive weeks at the top of the Billboard Hot 100, making it the longest-running No. 1 on the chart in nearly a decade, and has stayed at No. 2. ” Where I’ve been is not where I’m going LP.
The singer sat on a smoky stool set up like a country bar, wearing jeans and a lime green fringed jacket with eye-catching lapels and accents. “I see dead ends but we stay strong/We’ve been on a one-way street but it feels like it’s wrong/Moving like a freight train, tired of going alone,” he sings over acoustic guitar and lone violin.
As he leans into the ominous chorus – “I could die on the highway / With all my regrets / I’ve driven miles, miles, miles and I can’t see where the end is” — The singer, who was poised to win New Artist of the Year and Single of the Year for “Tipsy,” gave the crowd them when he violently transitioned into his signature hit mid-song Want something.
“CMA tonight can we turn this place into the world’s greatest dive bar?” he asked, and the crowd started clapping and singing along, many jumping to their feet, and a group of line dancers filling the stage, everywhere. The choir sounded. Keith Urban wasn’t immune, as cameras caught him talking about the party in the queue on Fifth Street.
As the celebrations heated up, a cowboy performed an impressive move with his lasso and a dancer did a back round at the end of the song, and the crowd at Nashville’s Bridgestone Arena couldn’t help but cheer. Raise your glass to one of the genre’s rising superstars.
