Don’t blame him.
Unless you’ve been living under a rock the last week, I’m sure you’ve seen reigning CMA New Artist of the Year, Zach Top’s, killer national anthem performance ahead of the NFC Championship Game between the Seattle Seahawks and Los Angeles Rams.
The game itself was nothing short of a gem, with the Seahawks’ Sam Darnold and the Rams’ Matthew Stafford trading blows and combining for 720 passing yards and six touchdowns. Evidently, Seattle made some key defensive stops and secured the 31-27 victory en route to their first Super Bowl appearance in 12 years. Ironically, they’ll be taking on Drake Maye and the New England Patriots, which will serve as a rematch of Super Bowl XLIX back in 2015.
While the NFL and sports world will obviously be gearing up over the next eight days for the Super Bowl, the country music community has still been buzzing over Top’s rendition of the “Star Spangled Banner,” which has been labeled one of the best in years. The living legend himself, Randy Travis, would also take to our comment section on Instagram upon our post of his performance, thanking Top for the performance and calling it “beautiful.”
“Thank you, Zach, for giving us back our Anthem—naturally, beautiful. A true country cornerstone!
Though Top stole the show for many, what some might not have known is that fellow country singer, Tucker Wetmore, who recently became just the 14th artist in the genre’s history to score #1 hits with his first two singles (“Brunette” and “1, 2, 3”) within the same year, actually headlined the half-time show during the game.
Given that both Top and Wetmore go back a bit and are technically related to each other (you can read more about that HERE), the two have a pretty good relationship.
In an interview with Seattle’s country radio station, 100.7 The Wolf, Top would reveal they shared a green room RV trailer before their respective performances. Here, Top would admit that he didn’t envy Wetmore’s spot during the game at all, noting that the “Wind Up Missin’ You” singer had to wait an entire half to truly enjoy the game and crush some beers.
“We did talk about that. Out back, we had our little green room RV trailer. He had one half of it, and I had the other half. And we talked about that. I was like, ‘Man, I don’t envy your spot. I’m so excited to just get this thing over with and, exactly that, crush beers and enjoy the game with my buddies.
He had to wait a little bit longer, but there was a lot of excitement in the second half. He got to enjoy a bunch of it too.”
While it’s pretty safe to say that performing the national anthem is inherently WAY more stressful than performing an unaired half-time concert, I totally get it. It’s pretty well-documented that Top, who is from Sunnyside, Washington, is a huge fan of Seattle teams like the Mariners and Seahawks. Lord knows any dedicated fan would much rather get the already nerve-racking performance over with before they have to sweat out watching their team try to book a trip to the championship.
Luckily for Top, not only did he deliver a killer performance of our country’s anthem but he also got to watch his Seahawks stamp their ticket to the Super Bowl, which they’re entering into as heavy favorites, in thrilling fashion. Sounds like a pretty good Sunday evening if you ask me.
Zach Top Tour Dates
February 5 – Scottsdale, Arizona – Coors Light Birds Nest 2026
February 21 – Zurich, Switzerland – The Hall
February 25 – Copenhagen, Denmark – K.B. Hallen
February 28 – Stockholm, Sweden – Annexet
March 3 – Oslo, Norway – Sentrum Scene
March 7 – Rotterdamn, Netherlands – Rotterdam Ahoy
March 8 – Berlin, Germany – Uber Eats Music Hall
March 13 – London, United Kingdom – The O2
March 14 – Belfat, Northern Ireland – SSE Arena
March 15 – Glasgow, United Kingdom – OVO Hydro
April 9 – Florence, Arizona – Country Thunder Arizona
April 24 – Lubbock, Texas – Jones AT&T Stadium
May 22 – Norfolk, Virginia – Patriotic Festival
