Carrie Underwood Can Do No Wrong, and This Thrashing Cover of Guns N’ Roses Is All the Proof You Need

The world first met Carrie Underwood in 2005, when the then 22-year-old belted her way to the season 4 crown on American Idol. In the two decades since, she has gone on to conquer country music as the genre’s highest-certified female artist of all time. However, the “Before He Cheats” singer, now 43, continues to prove there’s no genre she can’t tackle—just as she did with this 2013 CMA Fest performance of Guns N’ Roses’ 1989 hit “Paradise City”.

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Owning the stage in a white fringe top, cowboy boots, and studded headband, Underwood delivers her best Axl Rose impression—whistle and all—as she growls, Take me down to the Paradise City / Where the grass is green and the girls are pretty / Oh, won’t you please take me home? 

From the glam metal’s 1987 debut album Appetite for Destruction, “Paradise City” ranks among Rolling Stone’s 2010 list of “The 500 Greatest Songs of All Time”. Underwood perfectly captured the song’s attitude, with one YouTube viewer commenting that her performance was “like watching a lady version of Axl in his prime”.

“Name another female superstar artist let alone a country one that could blow the roof off the place with GnR!” added another.

[RELATED: Carrie Underwood Singing This 1976 Classic With Lindsey Buckingham on Guitar Is as Good a Fleetwood Mac Cover as You’ll Ever Hear]

Carrie Underwood’s Hard Rock Bona Fides

Growing up in small-town Oklahoma, Carrie Underwood was reared on classic country and gospel. However, she’s always had a darker side, musically speaking.

“I very much remember being a teenager, kind of discovering my own musical tastes, and my mom being very much against me listening to Ozzy,” Underwood told Howard Stern in May 2023. “I was also like, ‘I feel like you need to listen to some of these lyrics, because it’s not all darkness. There’s a lot of love songs and things that are a lot more melodic and sweet.’”

In August 2023, the “Blown Away” singer fulfilled a lifelong dream when she opened for Guns N’ Roses in Moncton, New Brunswick, Canada.

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In addition to her own material, Underwood’s set also included covers and mashups of iconic songs from Joan Jett, Pat Benatar, Heart, The Rolling Stones, Led Zeppelin and Motörhead.

“Just a country girl living out some rockstar dreams,” the eight-time Grammy winner later wrote on Instagram.

Featured image by Frederick Breedon IV/FilmMagic