Following the first day of Billboard Presents Bud Light Backyard at CMA Fest, which featured a trio of hot new acts captivating attendees at a packed Tin Roof on Lower Broadway on June 7, the second day of the Backyard experience on Saturday (June 8) continued to thrill fans 21+ with sets by fun-loving duo LOCASH, compelling Texas singer-songwriter George Birge and current country It Girl Dasha, who is having a massive breakthrough with “Austin.”
Similar to the day before when Corey Kent, Dalton Dover and Alana Springsteen took the second-floor stage, fans enjoyed line dancing lessons and other activities on the first floor between Saturday’s performances. Though many of the artists were playing other gigs around town during CMA Fest, Billboard Presents Bud Light Backyard provided the opportunity for a front-row, intimate experience attendees won’t soon forget.
LOCASH, comprised of duo Preston Brust and Chris Lucas, formed 16 years ago and has been a strong presence on the Country Airplay charts, registering more than 13 hits, including such toe-tappers as “I Know Somebody” and “One Big Country Song.” Their new single, “Hometown Town,” is their highest debuting track yet.
Birge, formerly of popular Texas duo Waterloo Revival, has been cutting out a strong solo career for himself even before signing with RECORDS Nashville, based on the strength of the simmering “Mind on You.” He just followed up his debut album with a seven-song EP, Cowboy Songs.
Dasha is a singer-songwriter with a slew of confessional love songs at the ready. But the California native, who signed to Warner Records, has burst through in a red-hot blaze on the strength of “Austin,” a fiery, fiesty breakup song that exploded on TikTok and inspired its own line dance. “Austin” reached No. 3 on Billboard’s Hot 100 and is still climbing the Country Airplay chart.
Here are some highlights from day two of Billboard Presents Bud Light Backyard at CMA Fest.
-
LOCASH Throws a High-Wattage Party
Image Credit: Gina Di Miao In their early days, LOCASH earned their stripes playing the bars on Nashville’s Lower Broadway, so it was a return to their past when they took the stage at the Tin Roof to get Saturday’s party started with a rowdy, infectious, non-stop set that had the packed venue hopping from their opening tune, the 2019 hit “One Big Country Song.”
“Let’s get this party rockin’,” exclaimed Chris Lucas, as the duo followed with “Buzzin’ in the Country,” a surefire crowd pleaser with its sing-along chorus, before segueing into their first No. 1 on Billboard’s Country Airplay chart, 2016’s easygoing “I Know Somebody.”
Like many acts playing the event, LOCASH had a cover song in their back pocket. In this case, it was a sultry, slow-jamming take on the Prince-penned “Waterfalls,” made famous by TLC 30 years ago. The duo quickly brought it back to the present with “Hometown Home,” their first song released through the new label they started, Galaxy Label Group. “We pushed all the chips in and bet on ourselves,” Preston Brust said. And it’s paying off. The gently swaying song, which features the duo’s layered harmonies, was the Hot Shot Debut on the Country Airplay chart, bowing at No. 56.
Of all the acts playing Billboard Presents Bud Light Backyard, LOCASH got the award for traveling the most distance. Three hours before their set, the group arrived from Wisconsin, where they had played the night before, and immediately left for a show Saturday evening in Indiana.
LOCASH then called an audible and veered from the set list, diving into a breathless medley of classic rock songs, starting with The Outfield’s “Your Love,” Bryan Adams’ “Summer of ’69” and Fountains of Wayne’s “Stacy’s Mom,” before launching into Lit’s “My Own Worst Enemy” and calling up the group’s lead singer, A. Jay Popoff, who lives in Nashville, to sing with them. For those several moments of pure unadulterated joy, there is no doubt that there was not a better time to be had on Lower Broadway. “Are we in trouble?” Lucas playfully asked after completing the rock segment. “I don’t know. I don’t care,” answered Brust.
After leading the audience in a chant of “Ain’t no party like a Billboard party because a Billboard party don’t stop,” complete with a spinning disco ball, LOCASH wound their segment down with their 2015 hit “I Love This Life,” which reached No. 2, before throwing signed drum sticks and guitar picks into the dancing crowd.
-
George Birge Displays His Texas Roots
Image Credit: Mary Hannah Harte George Birge worked the crowd with an amiable energy, hitting the stage already firing on all cylinders with the driving “Hard on the Bottle,” one of the seven songs on his newly released Cowboy Songs EP. He then delved into a clever mashup of Gavin DeGraw’s “I Don’t Want to Be” and Maroon 5’s “Harder to Breathe.” The two songs meshed perfectly under Birge’s smooth vocals.
Birge then launched into “It Ain’t Austin,” a nostalgic take on leaving your love and hometown behind that paid homage to his Texas roots, with emotional lyrics that proved, as Birge told the attentive audience, “I’ve always worn my heart on my sleeve. What you see is what you get.”
Like many of his fellow Bud Light Backyard performers, Birge expressed his appreciation for the exhilarating journey he has found himself on over the past several months. “This last year had been a complete thrill for me,” he said. “I pinch myself every day that I get to be up here on stage playing music for a beautiful crowd.”
That crowd was more than ready to sing along by the time Birge burst into the sexy, intoxicating “Mind on You,” a song he co-write with Colt Ford and had originally sent to Jason Aldean before realizing he would be wise to keep it for himself. It was a smart move, given the song — about a wayward lover that he cannot get out of his brain — climbed to No. 2 on Billboard’s Country Airplay chart and proved to be the breakthrough hit for Birge.
Following a dreamy, slowed down version of Miley Cyrus’s 2013 smash “Wrecking Ball,” Birge wrapped with “Cowboy Songs,” the title track from the new EP that is already looking like it could be a summer smash. The tune, which rises to No. 32 on the Country Airplay this week, tells of an intoxicating woman he’s smitten with when he initially spots her from across the bar. She has him all hot and bothered, so much so that he vows, “I like whiskey/ She likes tequila/ So I take one of both/ Just in case she walks in.” It was the perfect closer to perform in a crowded bar.
-
Dasha Takes a Nashville Crowd to ‘Austin’
Image Credit: Gina Di Miao The audience was waiting and primed for Dasha, given the strength of her viral TikTok moment, “Austin,” and cheered when she took the stage. She quickly proved she was much more than just the creator of one of this year’s top viral hits, which was responsible for its own line dance craze.
In a stripped-down set — with Dasha on acoustic guitar, accompanied only by a banjo player and a violinist (or fiddle player, since we’re in Nashville) — she captivated the crowd with songs about love gone wrong, largely drawn from her Warner Records debut, What Happens Now, which came out in February.
The California native opened with the searing “King of California” (nothing good can come from a song with an opening line like “I ate my tears for breakfast”), following with another heartbreaker, “Ain’t No Friend of Mine.”
She also treated the crowd to a handful of new songs that could potentially be included in the forthcoming deluxe version of What Happens Now. As a sneak preview, Dasha performed “Leaving Don’t Mean Goodbye” about a gaslighting lover, and then introduced her next single, “Didn’t I.” She teased the mid-tempo toe-tapper on TikTok recently and played it at CMA Fest at Nissan Stadium Friday night in front of more than 50,000 country fans. “The more I play that song, the more I’m so proud it’s coming out,” she said, before smiling and adding that it covered familiar terrain — backsliding into a love affair you’d long thought you’d left in your rear view mirror.
Dasha continued with the lovely, haunting “Even Cowboys Cry,” a touching ode about how even the toughest among us need to let down their guard sometimes.
As she will likely do throughout her hopefully long career, she closed with her mega-hit, “Austin,” which has garnered more than 257 million plays on Spotify alone. The stripped-down, less-syncopated version delighted her fans. Plus, the venue was so packed there was no room for line dancing anyway.