Several times during his performance at the inaugural People’s Choice Country Awards on September 28, Kane Brown made sure to check in with the crowd. “How we feeling? Come on now!” he exclaimed onstage. It paid off.
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After he wrapped “Bury Me in Georgia,” the crowd at the Grand Ole Opry House was completely on its feet giving him a standing ovation.
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Sporting a multicolored patchwork shirt and standing in front of a full band — complete with a keytar player (!) — Brown dominated onstage, running through his 2022 song from the Different Man album. He bounded from one side of the stage to the other asking the crowd if they were having a good time.
(Spoiler alert: They were.)
As he got into a nice moment with one of his soloing fiddle players, the massive LED screens wrapping around the stage enveloped the scene in a gray cloud of smoke. Right before he ripped into the song’s epic final verse, Brown hit ’em with a quick “check this out.” The electricity surged through the crowd, and a stomp-clap along thundered.
It’s no surprise he left amid a standing ovation.
“Bury Me in Georgia” is the opening track on Different Man. It reached No. 1 on Billboard‘s US Country Airplay chart, No. 8 on the US Hot Country Songs chart, and No. 34 on the Hot 100.
Brown is up for six awards during the show, including The People’s Artist of 2023, The Male Artist of 2023, The Album of 2023, The Song of 2023, The Collaboration Song of 2023, The Music Video of 2023.
The People’s Choice Country Awards are in their first year ever, set to “lean into the rich connection between country music and the Opry through chart-topping musical performances, genre-bending collaborations, legendary tributes, and surprise moments that regularly happen from the iconic venue,” according to a press release.
Photo by Terry Wyatt/Getty Images
