CMA Fest 2018: Keith Urban, Chris Stapleton and more Night 3 highlights

NASHVILLE — Saturday marked the third straight night of crowd-pleasing singalongs at the CMA Music Festival.

No, the Backstreet Boys didn't perform (that's Sunday). But fans at Nissan Stadium seemed more than satisfied by superstars Keith Urban and Chris Stapleton, among others.

Here are the highlights from night three of the festival, which closes Sunday.

Keith Urban: No time wasted

Experience is priceless.

That's one lesson any aspiring artist can take away from Urban’s headlining Saturday night set at Nissan Stadium.

On stage, Urban is all shoulders, hips, guitars and smiles, using his whole body — along with his music — to captivate the thousands of fans in Nissan Stadium.

Urban launched his set with Never Comin Down, a song from his new Graffiti U album.

“Hey, Nashville, do you feel like singing?” Urban asked. “All the way at the top, we can see you. We can hear you.”

Urban kicked off Somewhere in My Car and quipped, "You sound good," as fans jumped in immediately.

He followed with his current single Coming Home and then his Grammy-nominated Blue Ain't Your Color, asking fans if they wanted to sing again.

During The Fighter, Urban's duet with Carrie Underwood, he left the stadium's stage, explaining: "I'm going to come down and say hey."

He waded through the crowd and re-emerged on the satellite stage in the floor seats and pulled fans into another singalong.

“It’s very simple,” he told fans. “You sing Carrie’s part.”

The audience chimed in with: “What if I cry?” And, “If I get scared?”

Urban answered, and made it back to the main stage by the end of his song.

He closed his set at 12:10 a.m. with Wasted Time, leaving the audience wanting more.

If you’re Chris Stapleton, why speak when you can sing?

Stapleton walked out to the microphone, stood there and sang.

Then the music stopped. He stood there quietly until the music started again. Then he looked down to his guitar and sang.

He rarely spoke. But when you’ve got Stapleton’s great big grizzly bear of a voice, who needs small talk?

That voice made Stapleton’s subdued set an undeniable highlight. Not just of the night, but of the week.

He owned the crowd of tens of thousands, and they sang along to nearly every song he offered up. Broken Halos, which was accompanied by a sea of glowing cellphones, was particularly poignant.

By the time he sang the names of his band members (yes, really) and closed with Tennessee Whiskey, the George Jones cover that has become Stapleton's signature, the fans were almost as loud as the artist.

Almost.

For your consideration: Lee Ann Womack, this year's best 'new' artist

On Saturday evening, the fans at Nissan Stadium met one of the most exciting new country artists to come around in a while: Lee Ann Womack.

Yes, you read that right.

Womack might have rocketed to fame with hits like I Hope You Dance and I'll Think of a Reason Later, but her last couple of albums, including 2017's sumptuous The Lonely, the Lonesome and the Gone, feel like a reset.

The albums, which were both released on independent labels, are rootsy and stripped down, with all of the Music Row varnish scrubbed away. And Womack has never sounded better.

“To have this sort of second career and this whole other opportunity to start over, I feel like a new artist,” Womack said backstage before her set. “I’m happier than I’ve ever been, and I think that shows when I play the music. The new music.”

She said she hoped fans would rediscover her through a new lens Saturday night. And so when she emerged on stage to open the night at Nissan Stadium, she steered clear of all of her biggest hits and leaned heavily on her latest work.

She delivered a smoldering rendition of the murderous ballad Wicked, wailed her way through the bluesy All the Trouble and strummed a black guitar during The Way I'm Living, when she sang "if I ever get to heaven it's a doggone shame."

But as different and refreshing as this era feels, Womack’s artistic DNA is intact.

“It feels good to just do exactly what I love,” Womack said backstage. “But I’m still just a hard-core country singer.”

Morgan Evans bolts from one stage to another to watch wife Kelsea Ballerini's set

When Morgan Evans moved to Nashville from his native Australia three years ago, he had to leave his family, his hometown and his band behind.

Since then, he’s made up for two of the three. Evans has a new home in Nashville and married fellow country singer Kelsea Ballerini last year. However, he still doesn’t have a band. And he hasn’t needed one.

Evans, whose U.S. debut single Kiss Somebody is at No. 12 on Billboard's country radio airplay chart, performs nightly building loops as the audience watches.

“That’s my drummer,” Evans quipped Saturday night at Ascend Amphitheater, after programming a drum beat into the loop. He played the stage as part of Warner Music Nashville’s night on the Cracker Barrel Country Roads stage. “Chicks dig the drummer. I named him Dane after my Australian drummer.”

Judging from crowd response, the audience didn't miss the live band at all. Evans' set included I Do, new song Young Again and Kiss Somebody.

"The whole thing of everyone singing is new to me," Evans told fans before Kiss Somebody. "If you know the words, I don't want you to sing them. I want you to scream them."

After his set, Evans hurried across the river to see his wife, who performed at CMA Music Festival’s nightly concerts at Nissan Stadium.

Ballerini had no trouble commanding the king-sized crowd.

At one point, she stood center stage with an acoustic guitar and spoke directly to the women in the audience. She dedicated a stripped-down version of her first hit Love Me Like You Mean It to aspiring female singers in the crowd.

She was in the CMA Fest audience as a fan not too long ago. And she seemed intent on growing the ranks of young ladies in country music.

Amen.

Michael Ray wows at Ascend

Back at Ascend Amphitheater, Michael Ray could feel the connection he had with the audience Saturday night — and fans could feel it, too.

Ray, who recently released new album Amos, kept them entranced, working every angle of the stage. The singer's music spans semi-traditional to progressive, and he has the moves and attitude to make every note believable.

He kicked the show off with Fan Girl, the opening song from Amos, and over the course of the night got fans singing with No. 1 hits including Kiss a Little More and Kiss You in the Morning. His current single Get to You was also an audience favorite as was new song One of Us.

“When I moved to town, I lived in a two-bed, two-bath apartment with (six) guys,” Ray told the capacity crowd of close to 7,000. “We were dreaming of playing somewhere and someone showing up.”

The audience lived in the palm of his hand.

“This is what I’ve dreamed about my whole life,” Ray said, after acknowledging his record label group Warner Music Nashville. “Thank you guys for believing in music. I love you.”

WPXI