Universal Universal Music Group Nashville Pressroom

THROWBACK THURSDAY: At this time last year, Luke Bryan was in Houston prepping to perform the National Anthem at Super Bowl 51. Before he took the stage to sing “The Star-Spangled Banner,” he said he dreamed of that moment for years.

“The opportunity to perform the National Anthem at the Super Bowl is something that I can honestly say I’ve probably dreamed of ever since I was a kid. To wake up and things that you’ve dreamed of are right in front of you, it’s pretty powerful,” says Luke. “I’m just excited about the opportunity to go out there and honor America, honor our country, honor our troops, and I will certainly be excited to hit the last note and not be so nervous anymore and go enjoy a football game.”

Luke, who just announced 13 stadium and ballparks dates for his What Makes You Country Tour, is making his way up the country charts with “Most People Are Good.”

We are just a few days away from Sunday’s Big Game, and you want to make sure to watch NBC before the kickoff as you’ll be able to see the premiere of the opening video for Carrie Underwood’s “The Champion.” The video for the anthemic song, which was filmed last year, honors the rich legacy of the event featuring Super Bowl moments on a grand scale with cameos from NFL greats.

There are lots of champions on the field, and they make sure they keep in shape to be able to do their job. Carrie also works hard to stay fit for her job as a performer. It takes a lot of stamina and strength to get on stage night after night.

“I definitely do my part when it comes to my personal fitness. I want to be strong. It does take a lot to be on stage,” says Carrie. “I’m running around and singing, like those are, being active and singing at the same time is pretty difficult to do and it helps me in every aspect of my life. When I work out, I feel like I have a clearer head. I feel like I’m just ready for anything, and it feels good to make my body move like it was designed to do. So, I try my best to always stay healthy and fit, and then if there are any special things coming up, I do my best to get ready for them.”

Carrie co-wrote “The Champion” last year with fellow songwriters Brett James, Chris DeStefano and Christopher Bridges PKA Ludacris, who Underwood asked to collaborate on the event song produced by Jim Jonsin.

Carrie has been the face and voice of the show open for primetime television’s No. 1 program, Sunday Night Football, for the past five seasons and is currently in the studio working on her next album which will be released on Capitol Records Nashville.

Super Bowl LII will kick-off Sunday (February 4th) beginning at 6:30p ET on NBC.

Even though he’ll be a judge on the new reboot of ABC’s American Idol, Luke Bryan is finding time to put on an extra-large tour, or XL for short. Luke Bryan announced during a press conference in Nashville today (January 30th) the addition of 13 stadium concerts to his “What Makes You Country Tour” launching next month. Those dates will be coined “WHAT MAKES YOU COUNTRY TOUR XL STADIUM SIZED.” By the end of October, Luke will headline some of the North America’s biggest and best sports stadiums in Toronto, New York City, Cincinnati, Tampa, Pittsburgh, Boston, Minneapolis, Los Angeles (the first country concert to ever be held in Dodgers Stadium), Denver, St. Louis, Chicago, Vancouver and wrapping the tour in Detroit at Ford Field on October 26th. Information on when tickets will be available will be announced locally in the coming weeks.

Sam Hunt joins the tour as the special guest on all stadium shows along with Jon Pardi. Additional openers include Morgan Wallen (May-August), Carly Pearce (September & October) and DJ Rock. A full tour schedule is available on www.lukebryan.com. All were present during the press conference, and the press, along with fans watching on Facebook Live, received a musical treat as Jon performed his No. 1 hit “Heartache on a Dance Floor,” Sam went to his Montevallo catalog to sing “Take Your Time” and Luke performed the title track of both his album and his tour “What Makes You Country.”

“My excitement to play these iconic sports stadiums is truly uncontainable”, said Luke.  “Playing my music live is the reason I do what I do and the energy of the FANS is what pushes me year after year to deliver a bigger and better experience.  I’m so thankful to be in these venues and cities with some of the brightest names in country music. This lineup fires me up and I can’t wait to get this tour started!”

“What Makes You Country Tour” is named after Luke’s recently released album that debuted at #1 on both the Billboard Top 200 and Top Country Albums charts. It became his third consecutive album to debut at #1 on the Top 200 and his fifth #1 debut on the Top Country Albums Chart.

Luke is currently making his way up the country charts with “Most People Are Good” from his What Makes You Country album.

“WHAT MAKES YOU COUNTRY TOUR XL STADIUM SIZED”

DATE             CITY                                      VENUE
5/31/2018        Toronto, ON                          Rogers Centre

6/2/2018          New York City, NY              Met Life Stadium

6/16/2018        Cincinnati, OH                      Great American Ball Park
6/23/2018        Tampa, FL                             Raymond James Stadium

6/30/2018        Pittsburgh, PA                       Heinz Field

7/5/2018          Boston, MA                            Fenway Park

7/21/2018        Minneapolis, MN                   Target Field

7/28/2018        Los Angeles, CA                    Dodger Stadium
8/4/2018          Denver, CO                            Sports Authority Field at Mile High
8/25/2018        St. Louis, MO                       Busch Stadium
9/1/2018          Chicago, IL                            Wrigley Field

10/13/2018      Vancouver, BC                      BC Place Stadium

10/26/2018      Detroit, MI                             Ford Field

Kip Moore announced the second leg of his headlining PLEAD THE FIFTH TOUR today, kicking off in Kingston, Ontario on March 22nd. The new dates follow the fall leg of the tour which wrapped with a sold-out stint and praise from critics, including declaring “if you’re not sold on Kip Moore, one of his concerts will make you a fan… dang, is it a good show!” (The Boot.) Moore has invited Drake White to rejoin him on the trek following a fun-filled fall run, and has also enlisted Fairground Saints to join.  Tickets will go on sale on Feb. 2 at 10am CT, here.

New PLEAD THE FIFTH TOUR Dates:  

3/22/18      Kingston, ON              Rogers K-Rock Centre

3/23/18      Barrie, ON                  Mavericks Music Hall

3/24/18      Toronto, ON                Danforth Music Hall

3/25/18      Toronto, ON                Danforth Music Hall

3/27/18      Sault Ste Marie           The Machine Shop

3/29/18      Ottawa, ON                 Algonquin Commons

3/30/18      London, ON                London Music Hall

4/5/18        Charlotte, NC              Fillmore

4/6/18        Myrte Beach, SC         House of Blues

5/10/18      Vancouver, BC            Vogue Theater

5/11/18      Vancouver, BC            Vogue Theater

5/12/18      Penticton, BC              South Okanagan Events Centre

5/14/18      Medicine Hat, AB        Esplanade Theatre

5/15/18      Prince Albert, SK        EA Rawlinson Centre for the Arts

5/17/18      Winnipeg, MB             Club Regent Event Centre

Kip Moore recently released the “equal parts powerful, heartwarming and tear-jerking” (Entertainment Tonight) new music video for his new single “Last Shot.”  The track is the second taken from his revered third studio album SLOWHEART and follows his fourth No. One hit “More Girls Like You.” “SLOWHEART,” is continuing to garner praise by critics across the country as Moore “blends the passion and connection for which he’s known with a new self-awareness that will speak to both commercial and underground audiences” (USA Today) as well as wrapping 2017 on multiple “Best Of” lists including Entertainment Weekly, Rolling Stone, UpRoxx, Bobby Bones Show, Taste Of Country, Sounds Like Nashville, The Boot, PopMatters and Whiskey Riff. SLOWHEART follows the acclaim that surrounded Moore’s sophomore album WILD ONES heralded as “an impressively singular release from Music Row” by The Guardian and his PLATINUM debut album UP ALL NIGHT that spawned three No. One hit singles. Ahead of Moore’s headlining stint, he will hit the road in February with Luke Bryan in Springfield, MO on 2/16 and will then head back across the pond for a highly-anticipated return to Europe’s Country To Country Festival taking place March 9-11 in London, UK, Glasgow, UK, and Dublin, I.E. For more information, visit kipmoore.net.

Carrie Underwood’s “The Champion” will open NBC’s broadcast of Super Bowl LII on Sunday (February 4^th). The song, featuring Ludacris, was released earlier this month. (http://strm.to/TheChampionPR).

The opening video for the anthemic song, which was filmed last year, honors the rich legacy of the event featuring Super Bowl moments on a grand scale with cameos from NFL greats.

“The Champion reached No. 1 on the iTunes Top Songs chart (all genres) in nine countries shortly after its release. The song also debuted on multiple global Spotify charts.

Carrie feels we can all be champions, and her own champions include her parents and husband, former NHL star Mike Fisher. “I think it started with my parents, they just worked really hard and did everything they could to provide for us and make our lives better and give us every opportunity that they could,” she says. “In a different sense, you know my husband, on and off the ice, he’s definitely a champion of mine. I see the dedication that he put into his work playing hockey. I admire him so much for that. To see how much he put into, and the love, that he put into his God-given ability was just very inspiring.”

Carrie co-wrote “The Champion” last year with fellow songwriters Brett James, Chris DeStefano and Christopher Bridges PKA Ludacris, who Underwood asked to collaborate on the event song produced by Jim Jonsin.

Carrie has been the face and voice of the show open for primetime television’s No. 1 program, Sunday Night Football, for the past five seasons and is currently in the studio working on her next album which will be released on Capitol Records Nashville.

https://twitter.com/SNFonNBC/status/956617848729714688

Also, if you need more audio and liners on “The Champion,” click here for “The Champion” Audio Toolkit.

Lady Antebellum’s Hillary Scott and her husband Chris Tyrrell welcomed twin daughters early Monday morning (January 29th). The mom of three announced the news on Instagram and Twitter.

“Our family is thankful and proud to announce the arrival of our precious baby girls. They were born in the early hours of January 29th, 2018 and we can’t wait to share more about them in the days to come,” she wrote. “Thank you to everyone who prayed and prayed for these little ladies, and thank you Lord for healthy babies.”

The two little girls join big sister, four-year-old Eisele Kaye.

Our family is thankful and proud to announce the arrival of our precious baby girls. They were born in the early hours of January 29th, 2018 and we can’t wait to share more about them in the days to come. pic.twitter.com/RbFwdHNhfe

— Hillary Scott (@HillaryScottLA) January 30, 2018

Hillary had to miss the GRAMMY Awards due to the impending birth, but her bandmates Charles Kelley and Dave Haywood (whose wife just gave birth to their daughter Lillie early last month) took along a cardboard cutout of her, so she still “attended” the ceremony in a manner of speaking.

https://twitter.com/ladyantebellum/status/957728847184703488

Lady Antebellum is climbing the country charts with their latest song, “Heart Beat.”

Darius Rucker has been announced as one of the featured performers during this year’s Super Bowl pregame festivities on Sunday (February 4th). Darius, along with Sting, will perform at the NFL Tailgate Party and portions of those performances will be televised on the NBC Super Bowl LII Pregame Show.

Darius is a huge fan of NFL football (especially the Miami Dolphins) and is usually the Commissioner for at least five or six fantasy football leagues and has a “man cave” at home where he watches several games at once. He has always said there are only two times of the year for him – see if you can guess the seasons.

“Ever since I was five years old, I’ve loved football, and I love how physical it is. I love the chess match of the game. I love the speed of the game. I love college football, but for me watching pro football is better because the speed is so much more,” says Darius. “For me, there’s two times a year, man — football season and waiting for football season.”

The North Carolina native, who will hit the road with Lady Antebellum later this year, is moving up the country charts with his latest song, “For the First Time.”

Following his three GRAMMY wins last night (January 28th), Chris Stapleton announced the 2018 leg on his All-American Road Show Tour this morning, and he’s taking along special guests Marty Stuart and Brent Cobb. Tickets go on sale February 9th. He’s got a few festival and specialty dates before the trek kicks off June 16th in Brandon, Mississippi.

You can sign up for the pre-sale by going to Stapletonfanclub.com.

https://twitter.com/ChrisStapleton/status/957982620331200512

Chris Stapleton picked up his third award of the night for Best Country Album for From A Room: Volume 1. This is his second Best Country Album award; his first was for Traveller in 2016.

He released the collection of songs in May of last year, followed by Volume 2 in December. The album takes its name from Nashville’s historic RCA Studio A (the capital “A” in “From A Room”) where it was recorded over the last year with Grammy Award-winning producer Dave Cobb.

Chris also performed with Emmylou Harris, singing the late Tom Petty‘s “Wildflowers.” Backstage, he talked about being emotional before taking to the stage.

During the pre-telecast, Chris picked up two awards for Best Country Solo Performance for “Either Way” and Best Country Song for “Broken Halos,” which is making its way up the country charts.

Little Big Town won the GRAMMY Award for Best Country Duo/Group Performance for their Taylor Swift-penned smash hit “Better Man.”

Taylor sent the song to them – her first time pitching a song she wrote – and knew their harmonies would be perfect on it.

“She thought of us because of the harmonies and she’d never pitched a song to anyone before and the moment that we heard it we were like, ‘Man, that is a song that we are going to cut and so, yeah.’” (Phillip) “Immediately we were all like had the same reaction. Through our whole career, anytime we’ve had that reaction to a song we knew it felt right. So, this one just felt special and we’ve known Taylor since she was in high school, so she’s a dear friend of ours.”

Little Big Town is currently making their way up the country charts with their latest song, “When Someone Stops Loving You.”