The Turning Point USA All-American halftime show kicked off Sunday night before millions of fans who streamed the patriotic event online, an alternative to Bad Bunny’s Spanish-only Super Bowl 60 intermission that ended with the Puerto Rican pop star delivering a politically charged immigration message.
“Welcome to the Turning Point USA All-American Halftime Show. And this one’s for you, Charlie,” host Jack Posobiec said, honoring Turning Point USA’s late founder Charlie Kirk, before Brantley Gilbert played a stirring electric guitar rendition of “The Star Spangled Banner.”
Gilbert kicked off the concert with a patriotic version of “Real American,” followed by a powerful performance of Jason Aldean’s “Dirt Road Anthem.”
Gabby Barrett emerged from a near-black space on stage as the audience erupted in applause, as she opened with her smash hit “I Hope.” The country singer followed with “The Good Ones.”
The YouTube stream was hovering around four and a half million live viewers just as Lee Brice’s seven-minute set began. That number jumped to more than five million viewers when Brice began belting out the lyrics to his mega hit “Drinking Class.”
Before his next song, Brice honored Charlie Kirk by saying, “Charlie, he cools people’s microphones so they can say what’s on their mind. This is what’s on my mind.” Brice picked up his guitar and sang his bold, politically charged new song called “Country Nowadays.”
Lyrics of “The Country Today”:
It is not easy to be a country in this country today.
The direction that fingers point when everything is burning in flames
Saying I’m a right-wing demon because I was the red letter that Jesus held up
It is not easy to be a country in this country today.
Brice ended his performance with a powerful performance of his hit “Hard to Love.”
Next up was Kid Rock, who closed and took the energy to a new level with his classic track “Bawitdaba,” before switching to soft mode while covering Cody Johnson’s smash No. 1 hit, “Til You Can’t.” Rock added his own verse to the song, in which he evangelized about reading the Bible and serving Jesus Christ.
“There’s a book somewhere in your house that could do with dusting it off / There’s a man who died for all our sins hanging on the cross / You can give your life to Jesus and he’ll give you a second chance / Until you can’t,” Kid Rock sang.
The tribute to Kirk was shown on screen showing viewers a montage of photographs of Kirk and his widow, Erika Kirk, and their children.
