Trucks, mud, and southern girls are just a few of the things country music is usually sung about. Southerners like Miranda Lambert and Carrie Underwood aren’t afraid to get down and dirty. But all of that changes once the Academy of Country Music Awards roll around. Country music stars trade in their cowboy boots for heels and their plaid flannel shirts in for dresses and tuxedos. Glamour Magazine dubbed Taylor Swift, dressed in a white crop top and a sleek black J. Mendel maxi skirt, as the best dressed at the ACM awards.  When the many glamorous stars ventured out off the red carpet, poured into the venue, and sat in their seats, the lights started to dim and music started to play. The show was about to begin.

The 49th ACM Awards kicked off with The Band Perry’s showstopping performance of their new hit single, “Chainsaw”, setting the bar high for the rest of the performers for the night. At the end of their performance, snow white confetti coated the first three rows of the audience. Blake Shelton and Luke Bryan, the ACM’s co-hosts for the second year in a row, came on stage laughing at the celebrities frantically trying to get the confetti out of their hair and off of their clothes. “There’s 20 million dollars of hair-dos down there and it all has confetti in it,” joked Bryan. “ This is not a head and shoulders commercial everybody.”

Blake and Luke were a dynamic duo and got the crowd roaring with laughter after making good-natured fun at some of the performers and guests. They even tried to recreate Ellen DeGeneres’ selfie  from the Oscars, but they went down the front row rejecting star after star until the duo agreed that they were the two biggest stars in the room and took the selfie alone. Courtney Gentry, a junior at Cannon Falls High School, said that Blake and Luke were a great addition to the show.

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I loved their monologue! I hope we get them again next year, because they were really great!” The co-hosts were a wonderful part of the show, but the performances were the icing on the cake.

Florida Georgia Line sang “This is How We Roll”  at the ACMs with Luke Bryan, the performance complete with bikers flipping on ramps and fire spewing in the background.  After their electric performance, Lee Brice removed the flashing lights and smoke to deliver a raw acoustic performance of his song, “I Drive Your Truck.” It was easy to see that the song had touched Lee Brice, who was nearly in tears by the end of his performance. His song also touched many others, and was one of the many reasons “I Drive Your Truck” won the Song of The Year award. Vocal Event of the Year went to Keith Urban and Miranda Lambert’s billboard chart topper “We Were Us.” At the end of the night, George Strait was dubbed Entertainer of The Year and The Band Perry took home the Vocal Group of the Year award. Afterward, the sister-and-brothers trio was interviewed backstage about their confetti explosion. Kimberly Perry, one of the three siblings that make up the band, said that everyone at the ACMs are always worried about their appearance and how their hair looks, so the group thought it would be a great idea to release confetti – getting the party started and “break[ing] the ice”. “We came, we saw, we confettied them all,” Kimberly jokes with her two brothers. “It was really fun!”

This year’s ACMs were just as much fun for the performers as the people watching at home. Here’s hoping for an equally impressive performance next year