Alan Jackson took the stage one last time Saturday night | Music City Minute
Saturday night at Nissan Stadium, 55,000 fans gathered to watch Alan Jackson close the book on a 35-year touring career. The show was called "Last Call: One More for the Road The Finale," and it lived up to every word. The evening started with a little drama nobody planned for lightning rolled through Nashville forcing a full stadium evacuation right before showtime. But the weather cleared, and when Jackson finally walked out at 9:25, he did what he's always done. He kept it real. "We're not going to dwell on all this sad 'last show' stuff," he told the crowd. "I'm not dead." He joked that it had started to feel a bit like a funeral, watching all these stars sing his songs from heaven. "Two-step up and down the aisle, have a good time, have a drink," he said. "We'll try to play something you like."
Before Jackson took the stage, the first two hours belonged to the artists he inspired. Luke Combs, Carrie Underwood, Miranda Lambert, Eric Church, Luke Bryan, Lainey Wilson, Cody Johnson, Riley Green, Jon Pardi, Lee Ann Womack, and more all covered Jackson's catalog. His great-niece Carlisle Wright, whom Jackson personally invited to make her Opry debut just weeks earlier, opened the show. Then came the man himself with a 24-song set that covered decades of hits. George Strait walked out to join him for "Designated Drinker" and "Murder on Music Row." He closed the main set with "Chattahoochee" one final time before an encore of "Mercury Blues" and "Where I Come From." The whole thing is being filmed for an NBC special later this year. But for the people who were there, Saturday night in Nashville was something no TV broadcast will ever fully capture.
