Last night, the Country Music Association held its annual CMA Awards in Nashville. The idea was for this to be a “no drama” evening — a regular in-person event, like the kinds we used to get before the pandemic. That’s not quite what happened. Various announced performers — Florida Georgia Line, Lee Brice, Rascal Flatts, Lady A, Jenee Fleenor — had to pull out of the show because of positive COVID tests. Margo Price criticized the show for trying to stay whitewashed and apolitical in a time when that’s not possible. The Associated Press pulled all coverage when the show wouldn’t give them photo access. A lot of stuff was going on!

But the show still went down more or less as planned. And in a pleasant surprise, the evening’s anointed one was Eric Church, Nashville’s resident insider-outsider outlaw type. Church won the Entertainer Of The Year Award, traditionally the night’s most coveted trophy. Garth Brooks took himself out of contention for Entertainer Of The Year this year after winning it three of the preceding four years, but Church’s triumph still feels like an unpredictable left-field win.

Accepting the award, Church said, “If ever there was a year not to win this award! I was thinking about this when I walked up here. This award, this year, at least for me, has been about the loss of this year — loss of life, loss of playing shows, loss of freedom, loss of kids being in school. You know what the win is? The win is we were all here together tonight, as country music — in person, live, not on Zoom.” Debatable! He also said, “Politicians are about division. Music is about unity.” Here’s Church’s speech:

Church also performed on the show, singing the his just-released single “Hell Of A View.” It’s a relatively restrained song, and he gave it a relatively restrained reading. Church’s performance doesn’t seem to exist on the internet as an embeddable video, but you can watch it here.

In the Entertainer Of The Year category, Church defeated the surging Luke Combs, as well Miranda Lambert, Carrie Underwood, and Keith Urban. Combs won Album Of The Year for his utterly massive What You See Is What You Get, and he also took home Male Vocalist Of The Year. Morgan Wallen, the guy who couldn’t go on Saturday Night Live because he’d been randomly making out with tons of college girls the weekend before, won New Artist Of The Year. The great Maren Morris, who wasn’t up for Entertainer Of The Year, won Female Vocalist Of The Year, and her slow-building crossover hit “The Bones” won both Single Of The Year and Song Of The Year. Morris sang a stately version of “The Bones” on the show. Here’s her performance:

In other crossover-smash news, the duo Dan + Shay got together with Justin Bieber to perform their big collaborative hit “10,000 Hours” live for the first time. Bieber didn’t jump on a plane to Nashville for this one. Instead, Beiber and Dan + Shay sang the song together in an empty Hollywood Bowl, which made for a pretty cool visual. Here’s that one:

Chris Stapleton, who always kills at awards shows, sang a lovely bare-bones version of “Starting Over,” the title track from his forthcoming album. Stapleton didn’t play with his band. Instead, he and his wife Morgane harmonized into a single microphone, and the only instrument was Stapleton’s acoustic guitar.

Miranda Lambert, who would’ve honestly been my choice in the Entertainer Of The Year category, performed a low-key, reflective version of “Settling Down,” one of the singles from last year’s great Wildcard album.

And the tough-as-hell Ashley McBryde, whose LP Never Will might be the best country album of 2020, sang a strong, vulnerable version of her single “One Night Standards.”

More stuff happened, too. But you probably didn’t come to Stereogum to read that Old Dominion won Vocal Group Of The Year or whatever.