2007 ACM Awards Live Blog

Welcome to the first live blog on The 9513! I’m going to try and blog for the full three hours of the ACM awards show tonight…depending on how exciting things are. Kevin over at Country Universe is a seasoned professional when it comes to live blogging, so hop on over to his blog to get a different point of view.

	Matt	Jim	Brody	Brady
Score	9/13	8/13	6/13	7/13
Entertainer of the Year
Top Male Vocalist
Top Female Vocalist
Top Vocal Group
Top Vocal Duo
Top New Male Vocalist
Top New Female Vocalist
Top New Duo or Vocal Group
Album of the Year
Single Record of the Year
Song of the Year
Video of the Year
Vocal Event of the Year

7:00 Kenny Chesney kicks the show off with “Beer In Mexico,” not an entirely exciting opening to the show, but it could be worse.

7:04 Shania Twain just took the stage to introduce Reba. Shania doesn’t look like she’s aged a day. My girlfriend says Reba looks freakin’ awesome.

7:07 The crowd went went wild when Reba introduced George Strait as well as Rascal Flatts. Just goes to show the varied tastes of country music fans. BTW, don’t let anyone ever tell you that this live blogging stuff is easy.

7:08 Reba’s jokes are a little cheesy, but she’s probably not offending anyone in the process.

7:10 “Give It Away” takes the cake for the ACM Song of the Year, congrats George Strait! Bill Anderson took the stage with Strait to accept the award and made a quip that he was old enough to be Carie Underwood’s grandfather. I think I remember reading the same joke in a few articles leading up to the ACM Awards, still very true though.

7:13 Professional rider Justin McBride came out to introduce Miranda Lambert. She’s performing “Famous In a Small Town” and is setting the bar pretty high for those taking the stage after her. I’m actually surprised at how good she sounds live. Dude in the background has a nice mohawk goin’ on.

7:21 Martina McBride is performing “Anyway.” Is it just me, or does she looks a lot like Katie Couric? This isn’t my favorite song, but wow does she have some vocal chords on her.

7:26 Martina announces the award for Album of the Year, and the winner is Some Hearts by Carrie Underwood. I’m 50% on predictions so far.

7:29 Commercial Break – Unfortunately we don’t have any sponsors at The 9513 or I’d take the time to plug them here. If anyone out there is reading be sure and leave a comment.

7:33 Reba says that in ACM Awards’ fight against global warming, Toby Keith is back stage surrounded by two ice cold kegs of beer. Nice contribution ;)

7:34 Josh Turner is performing “Would You Go With Me.” My girlfriend is beginning to be attention-starved, she thinks Turner is singing to her. I think that’s my subliminal cue to put the computer down…

7:39 It still baffles me that Craig Morgan is up for the New Male Vocalist award. It doesn’t matter though, Rodney Atkins took the award. I think he’s even sporting a new hat, too.

7:45 So far the performances tonight have been much better than the ones at the CMT Music Awards. Granted the the ACMs have more time, but they picked some nice artists to represent country music to the television audience. Right now George Strait is singing “Wrapped” as his steel guitar player is tearing it up.

7:50 Little Big Town takes the cake for Top New Duo/Vocal Group. All the members seem to be genuinely excited to have won.

7:58 Reba gives a shout out to Okies and introduces Carrie Underwood. Underwood is performing “Wasted.” Her outfit looks a lot more casual than her CMT Award attire. She added a nice wink to the end of the song.

8:02 One hour in and I’m still holding up. Taylor Swift is up to perform “Tim McGraw.” Her introducer claims that Swift and McGraw have never met until tonight. Swift is going solo with her guitar, quite impressive.

8:04 The cheese factor just shot up tenfold, Swift is now singing directly to McGraw and Faith Hill and she just gave them both a hug. McGraw looks a little uncomfortable. Reba saves the moment by hinting that she wouldn’t mind it if some teenage boy wanted to pen a song titled “Reba McEntire.”

8:06 Reba gave a shout out to the armed forces, which got a standing ovation from the audience. Pure class.

8:08 Rascal Flatts are singing some song I haven’t heard before. About the only songs I’ve heard are the ones they have on the radio, but this one isn’t much better. They’ve got a picture montage in the background in tribute to those lost at Virginia Tech.

8:15 Still looking subdued, but classy, Underwood is back to present Top New Female Vocalist. And the winner is…Miranda Lambert! Matt was the only one to get this right. Lambert is who I wanted to win, but thought Swift’s success from “Tim McGraw” would propel her to the top. Miranda Lambert read her acceptance speech from paper.

8:17 Brad Paisley is performing his latest single, “Ticks.” It’s nice to see that some people don’t have to take themselves too seriously. There might be something wrong with the sound equipment, his vocals are almost being drowned out by the instrumentation. It gives it a muddy sound. The crowd seemed to love the song.

8:26 Dr. Phil is in the house to introduce Toby Keith who is performing “High Maintenance Woman.” There appears to be some more sound problems at the beginning of the song that’s causing everything to fall flat. I don’t understand what the bikini clad construction women have to do with the song.

8:31 Vince Gill is presenting the Home Depot Humanitarian Award. The recipients are Brooks & Dunn.

8:32 I’m really not trying to make the awards show sound so boring, but there’s just not very much excitement and we still have half a show left.

8:34 Muzik Mafia has a strong showing on the show with Gretchen Wilson and Cowboy Troy giving a shout out to John Anderson and a follow up performance from Big & Rich joined by John Legend. Despite all the bad things people say about Big & Rich I think this is a pretty nice song.

8:42 Little Big Town is on stage struttin’ their stuff. All this exposure should help garner them a few more fans. I think it’s time to present another award though, it’s been an hour and forty-five minutes and only five awards have been doled out.

8:46 Rodney Atkins, still sporting his trademark ball cap, is performing. The girlfriend says it sucks…I might have to concur, even though we both like Atkins as an artist.

8:49 Terri Clark is looking pretty orange as her and Darius Rucker present Single of the Year to George Strait for “Give It Away.” Strait accepts the award this time and acts like a man whose accepted many awards before this one.

8:51 The sound still sounds horrible on Jason Aldean’s “Johnny Cash.” And that title is still a gratuitous use of Cash’s name. Aldean is screaming and the vocals are still barely getting out.

8:59 The Flatts guys aren’t even close to being funny as they introduce Reba and Kelly Clarkson for their duet. Call me silly, but I think Reba’s totally outperforming Clarkson.

9:05 Eddie Montgomery, Troy Gentry, and some tall chick present Male Vocalist of the Year to Brad Paisley. I’m really sucking it up on these predictions as Matt takes another category.

9:11 Brooks & Dunn are performing “Hillbilly Deluxe.” Not my favorite of theirs, but at least it’s not “Play Something Country.”

9:15 Top Vocal Group is presented by a chuckling Blake Shelton and Joe Nichols. And the trophy is sarcastically presented to Rascal Flatts. Surprise.

9:18 You know it’s a boring show when the commenters start asking “Who would win in a fight between Kenny Chesney and Terri Clark” and the unanimous decision is Terri Clark.

9:19 Faith Hill is singing her new single. The girlfriend is bored. She also says that Faith Hill has nicely shaved underarms…these are the things that women notice.

9:28 Sugarland is busting out the island twang with a conveyor belt going across the stage. This is the kind of performance to have towards the end of the show to keep the audience from falling asleep. I’ve never been big on the Sugarland bandwagon, but after Nettles’ CMT Music Award performance I’ve been converted a little. She’s got a pleasant voice and amazing control.

9:32 Back to the awards, this time for Top Vocal Duo. Brooks & Dunn wins it. I was hoping for an upset. BTW, didn’t Sara Evans look like she didn’t get enough sleep or something?

9:39 The show jumps directly into a Tim McGraw performance after the commercial break. I don’t think I’ve heard this song before, did they say it was a new one? The crowd ate it up.

9:45 Top Female Vocalist goes to (drum roll) Carrie Underwood. Wow, who guessed that one? ;) She’s still giving shout outs to American Idol.

9:51 Mr. Eclectic himself, Vince Gill takes the stage to get the crowd pumped up. The dude bleeds talent.

9:56 Shania is back to present Entertainer of the Year. Kenny Chesney wins. The only reason I picked him was because I felt like this is the only thing he lives for.