To be fair, there weren’t a lot of highlights to choose from.
Last night’s ACM Awards were pretty uneventful for the most part. Lainey Wilson took home the night’s top prize, there were a ton of pop singers in a transparent bid to boost ratings that’s never going to work, and some of country music’s biggest stars like Luke Combs and Morgan Wallen couldn’t even be bothered to show up for the increasingly-meaningless awards ceremony.
So if you missed it, well, that’s pretty much all you need to know.
But in one of the surprise highlights of the night, Jason Aldean took to the stage to pay tribute to the late, great Toby Keith with a stripped-back “Should’ve Been a Cowboy” tribute that turned out to be one of the best performances of the evening.
I’ll admit, like everybody else, I was a little skeptical when it was announced that Jason would be doing the tribute. He’s not always the best performer, and honestly after the last Toby Keith tribute at the CMA Awards that was a total clusterf*ck, I thought they needed to get somebody better for the moment.
But credit where it’s due, Jason knocked it out of the park.
Instead of the usual full-throttle version of the song, Jason sat on stage and delivered a slowed-down acoustic version, with only some guitar and string accompaniment.
It was the kind of tribute that Toby deserves, and after the awards his family expressed their appreciation for the moment, calling it the “perfect tribute.”
Gotta give him credit: I may have been skeptical, but Jason stepped up to the moment and delivered one of the few memorable performances of the evening.
God bless Toby Keith.