Luke Bryan, Ashley McBryde, Zach High among the many greatest moments
Bailey Zimmerman’s heart-on-his-sleeve ardour. Luke Bryan’s earnest, aw-shucks attraction. Dierks Bentley and Ashley McBryde showcasing stellar tune catalogues and band management. With all of this and much more alongside the way in which Sunday night, the 52nd CMA Fest closed its 2025 version with a slate of established and rising nation artists shining brightly as ever.
Some say nation music is about religion, household and enjoyable. For others, the style boils down to 3 chords and the reality. But it surely’s the ability in how superstars ship these values that has stored the style’s followers coming again to Music Metropolis’s Nissan Stadium yr after yr.
And sure, even multi-platinum-selling rapper BigXThaPlug joined the festivities for his Zimmerman duet “All The Approach,” exhibiting that when it hits good, nation music’s attraction is stunningly broad and simple.
Listed here are the night time’s most memorable moments:
Zach High brings traditional honky-tonk vibes to Nissan Stadium
Co-signs from Alan Jackson and Dierks Bentley are among the many the reason why Zach High’s 2024-released debut album “Chilly Beer and Nation Music” emerged as one in every of final yr’s must-listen smashes.
His Sunday night set on the 52nd CMA Fest ushered within the subsequent chapter of showcasing his uncanny skill to mix top-tier musicianship with deceptively easy songwriting right into a hit-making mix.
High’s efficiency of “Sounds Like The Radio” swept the gang into an virtually quick two-stepping frenzy.
Greater than ever, his sound feels comfortably versatile in filling flooring on dancehall nights, interesting to a crowd on the Ryman Auditorium, or in any of the bigger arenas, amphitheaters, or stadiums which have dotted his tour schedule for the previous few years.
Songs like “Unhealthy Luck,” latest radio chart-topper “I By no means Lie” and dishonest anthem “Use Me” showcase the emotional vary of his work. The latter’s use of the pedal metal guitar provides an considerable whiskey-woozy vibe to the waltz-time tempo.
High additionally debuted his self-described “hopefully subsequent nice summer time nation anthem,” “Good Instances & Tan Traces” in the course of the set.
Time will inform if his assertion is right, however the fawning approval of fifty,000 nation followers to its honky-tonk twang on an ideal Nashville Sunday night time feels prefer it’s off to an important begin.
Ashley McBryde showcases Southern rock’s attraction
Again-to-back years’ CMA Fest co-host Ashley McBryde introduced her swagger to the Nissan Stadium stage. As anticipated, the tattooed and leather-based pant-clad rocker carried out a rousing mix of rootsy and authentically heartfelt sounds.
The CMA award winner’s scintillating “Rattlesnake Preacher” kicked off her set, adopted by “Made For This,” the 2023 ode to her hard-touring way of life and “Satan I Know” album monitor.
McBryde performing a canopy of Don Henley’s “Boys of Summer season” was surprising. However the performer and her band are expert in whipping up excitable crowd, even when it means defying style expectations. Her rendition was a sing-along second.
There’s one thing about songs like “Ain’t Sufficient Water In The River” and “One Evening Requirements” that makes them really feel like well-worn A-sides and B-sides of long-treasured data.
“The factor I really like about nation music is that unhappy songs preserve us joyful and dishonest songs preserve us trustworthy,” McBryde stated earlier than enjoying the “dishonest tune” “Drained Of Being Comfortable.”
McBryde closed her set by welcoming the New Orleans Roots of Music band to the stage. The group that promotes the Crescent Metropolis’s musical heritage by way of music training and mentorship acquired a spherical of applause.
Avery Anna, Kashus Culpepper impress
Twenty-one year-old Avery Anna achieved her largest desires of nation stardom through her efficiency on CMA Fest’s platform stage within the middle of the gang at Nissan Stadium.
Briefly overwhelmed by the chance, she performed a weak rendition of “Indigo,” her grief-stricken duet with Sam Barber, which at the moment rising by way of the ranks of the nation radio charts.
She stopped on the finish of her refrain, eyes welling with tears. “I can’t sing the final line,” she stated, smiling.
One other underground-to-mainstream success story, Huge Loud-signed Alabama native Kashus Culpepper carried out “After Me?” and “Pour Me Out,” two of his rising assortment of earnestly sung and well-regarded materials, on Nissan Stadium’s platform stage.
“Blows my thoughts,” the blues, folks, gospel and soul-rooted rising star provided to an impressed crowd.
Dierks Bentley says CMA Fest is ‘the best weekend of our lives’
Dierks Bentley, the “Burning Man” himself, introduced the gang to their ft the second the primary guitar strum lit the stage afire.
“That is the best weekend of our lives, we name it the ‘Nation Music singers’ Thanksgiving,'” Bentley instructed the gang.
Viewers cutaways confirmed followers swaying their fingers and lip syncing, “I have been gone, I have been gone, I have been sittin’ on the sofa watching TV all day lengthy.”
Bentley’s gravel-edge rasp flowed like a easy river. He injected power into Nissan Stadium his toe-tapping singles, “Burnin’ Man,” “Gone” and “Free and Straightforward (Down the Highway I Go).”
Bentley is about to launch his album, “Damaged Branches,” on June 13. He provided a style along with his ultimate tune, “She Hates Me.”
“That is the all-star followers, the best of the greats,” Bentley bragged to the viewers of nation music’s No. 1 followers. “Such an honor to be right here.”
The daddy of three introduced Zach High again to the stage for a hip-swaying, knee-slapping rendition of Alabama’s traditional “Mountain Music.”
Earlier than letting High go, Bentley put his arm across the 27-year-old in a fatherly method, “Let me let you know one thing about this man… That is the way forward for nation music proper right here, Zach High. Now get your ass out of right here.”
Bentley jumped into “What Was I Pondering?” after which took a literal which means to the tune title, telling the gang that it was his final tune and strolling off. Earlier than he escaped the highlight, he paused and counted his fingers. He then had an “aha second,” circled and stated he had another tune, his mega hit, “Drunk on a Airplane.”
Luke Bryan ‘shakes it’ lengthy into the Nashville night time
Luke Bryan, 30 No. 1 hits (and counting), closed CMA Fest with a set primarily comprised of immediately recognizable nation radio anthems, together with his most up-to-date “Thoughts of A Nation Boy” album hit, “Love You, Miss You, Imply It.”
Appropriately, the “American Idol” co-host opened with “I Do not Need This Evening to Finish” and “Kick The Mud Up,” a pair of still-beloved, decade-old hits.
Strapping on an electrical guitar and main his band headlong into “What Makes You Nation,” Bryan flashed a youthful smile. The chance to shut CMA Fest motivated Bryan to push his vocal and instrumental skills to the restrict.
Did that embrace sitting at a piano to carry out the gang favourite energy ballad “Strip It Down?” It certain did.
Earlier than a nonetheless keen Sunday night crowd, his hip-shimmying cheekiness showcased throughout “Knockin’ Boots” and “That is My Type of Evening” and essentially the most commonplace of rural beliefs, say, like, “searching, fishing and loving day-after-day,” translated to ear-warming choruses.
Because the night time wore into Monday morning, Bryan unleashed “Nation Woman Shake It For Me,” arguably his career-defining hit.
The kind of frenzy the banjo-driven down-home rocker whips followers into hit a brand new degree as CMA Fest closed. Throughout the celebration, a Nissan Stadium safety guard and “Rodney,” a Resistol hat and American flag overall-clad fan, had been invited onstage to bop alongside the nation famous person.
“We love you Nashville,” provided Bryan as his band performed into the night time.