Music City brought out some top-tier talent for New Year’s Eve Live: Nashville’s Big Bash.
Artists like HARDY, Lainey Wilson, Parker McCollum, Cody Johnson, Megan Moroney, Brothers Osborne, Jon Pardi, Carly Pearce, and more took the stage to sing some of their biggest hits for fans at Bicentennial Park on the live TV event.
But for fans gathering to ring in the new year in Nashville with other performers in Morgan Wallen and Blake Shelton, well, they were disappointed to find out that those performances were prerecorded, and they weren’t going to be getting a live show from either country star.
It’s not totally uncommon for a live show to have a few prerecorded performances sprinkled throughout the evening (a little inside baseball for ya), even at major awards shows, but I have to admit that the billing was presented as if the entire lineup was going to be there live:
I mean, I at least feel like people traveling there just to have seen Morgan (mostly, I’m guessing), should’ve been made aware that he wasn’t performing that evening.
Back in October, a few TikTok videos circulated of Morgan performing in a secret location near the Tennessee Titans stadium, where he sang three songs and also did a countdown to midnight, which didn’t make it to air on the live special…
But if you missed that, then there was really no way to know he wasn’t actually going to be there:
@kcockrell53 From Morgan Wallen News on Instagram a lucky fan seeing Morgan filming the New Year Eve Special @morganwallen #morganwallen #morganwallentiktok #morganwallenfyp #foryoupage #fyp #foryou #fypシ #newyearseve ♬ original sound – Karen
Over on reddit, a few users questioned why so many fans in the crowd were wearing “tank tops and short sleeves,” and that’s because it happened months ago:
“Wait why wasn’t it live? So weird.”
I imagine there were a lot of disappointed 20-year old girls in the crowd waiting to hear “Last Night,” and honestly, I feel for ’em… they kinda got gypped.
And as for Blake, he was in Oklahoma, as his performance in Nashville aired just minutes before he took the stage in real life at a WinStar casino back home during a separate show there.
Fans sounded off on Twitter (X), remarking sarcastically that he “must have one fast ass tour bus” to have made it from Tennessee to Oklahoma so quickly:
And it sounds like some didn’t like his performance at all…
It also seems that some weren’t a fan of his duet with Trace Adkins of “Hell Right” (and I can’t say I blame them…) on the CBS special:
I think we can at least say that host Elle King had a great evening…
A word to the wise next year, if you’re planning to travel to Nashville for your New Year’s celebrations, be cautious and know that much of the lineup will likely not be there performing live in-person.
Here’s a little of “Everything I Love” from Morgan’s part of the CBS special:
@cmt Leaving #2023 in a cloud of dust! #CBSNashvilleNYE #nye #morganwallen #everythingIlove ♬ original sound – CMT
And “Hillbilly Bone” with Blake and Trace:
