Photos by McCayla McClard ; Written by McCayla McClard

On January 31, 2024, the city of Nashville rang in the New Year the only way music city knows how to: with HOURS of live music and top country artists’ performances! Hosted live at Bicentennial Park, neatly sat next to the city’s capital hill, upwards of 220,000 people filled the park with the excitement to celebrate the new year and to see the famous music note drop at the stroke of midnight.

The night began with a celebration of the Irish New Year! Representatives of Ares Lingus shared the stage with Nashville Mayor, and fellow Irishman, Freddie O’Connell to discuss the airline’s first-ever offering of a direct flight from Nashville to Ireland. Turning the music note green the airline representatives counted us down and told us how they say, “Happy New Year,” in Ireland! Then as a team, everyone on stage and off wished the people of Ireland, “Athbhliain Faoi Mhaise Duit!”

The first to perform on the NYE stage is the phenomenal Keith Urban! Urban is no stranger to bringing the heat to the Nashville NYE Stage, and this year was no different! Singing hits liked, “Messed Up As Me,” and even gave fans some songs from his newest album, “HIGH” Keith Urban also delighted fans by bringing country music rookie Alana Springsteen up to cover Laney Wilsions part in the popular duet, “GO HOME W U,” showing off Springsteen’s charm and talent to the NYE crowd. Urban even brought out his Oscar award-winning wife Nicole Kidman for a quick cameo!

Following Urban was recent online sensation Shaboozey! Fresh from his performance last month on SNL, Shaboozey gave the crowd exactly what they wanted by performing his hit song “Bar Song (Tipsy)” We also got another country music up-and-comer on stage, Brittney Spencer! Still buzzing from her performance with Beyonce at the NFL Christmas Half-Time Show, Spencer gave us a beautiful performance of her song, “I Got Time”

Georgia Native, Kane Brown, got to feel the Nashville heat (even in the freezing rain) during his set! Letting the crowd know he was a bit flustered at the sheer amount of people in attendance, at one point Brown began naming off states to see where the crowd all came from! Crazy enough, Kane found a young man in the from row who grew up in the same hometown as him and graduated from the same high school as well! He lit up the stage with hits like, “Lose It,” and even dedicated his hit, “For My Daughter,” to his two little girls at home! Fans were ecstatic to see his wife Katelyn Brown appear on stage and perform a new duet titled, “Body Talk” After Katelyn departed from the stage Kane thanked the crowd for their cheers, stating his wife hadn’t been on stage in such a long time and was incredibly nervous to perform that night!

Wrapping up the lineup we had Nashville native, and probably the reason for the record number of attendees, Jelly Roll hit the stage! He was announced by his wife, and comedian, Bunnie, and comedian Bert Kreischer. Jelly Roll didn’t let the size of his hometown crowd overwhelm him as he took the stage performing his hit, “Im Not Okay” as well as his duet with singer-songwriter and friend Jessie Murph called “Wild Ones” Jelly also entertained fans with covers of hip-hop classics like “Mrs. Jackson,” by OutKast, “Lose Yourself,” by Eminem, “Crazy Rap (Colt 45 & 2 Zig Zags)” by Afroman, and many more! The covers, however, didn’t end with hip-hop, Jelly Rolly also performed Lynyrd Skynyrd’s classic “Simple Man” enlisting the help of the audience to see the chorus completely acapella to see what it would sound like to have 220,000 singing Lynyrd Skynrd together! Finally, and probably the cover that meant the most to the community, Jelly’s final song before the countdown began was a cover of the last Toby Keith’s “I Should’ve Been A Cowboy” Fans of all walks sang with Jelly Roll to honor the late country start one last time in 2024!

While the live performances were more than enough to heat up the city of Nashville on this cold New Year’s Eve night, there were a few more notable live performances across bars and honkytonks downtown that were live-streamed into the broadcast! Most notable was county music legends Brooks&Dunn coming to us live from Luke Comb’s Category 10 bar singing this monumental hit, “Save A Hore Ride A Cowboys,” Eric Church also came to us live from his bar, Chief’s, to sing his song “Springsteen” We then had country royalty Christ Stapelton share a stage with hip-hop sensation, but country newcomer Post Malone at Robert’s downtown singing their song, “California Sober”

After all the music was sung and all the confetti was popped, Nashville rang in the new year with fireworks and excitement for what the year of 2025 will bring them! Here’s to a new year full of laughter, happiness, good health, and, of course, TONS of live music!