Half a year after setting a new bar for country awards show performances alongside HARDY at the 2022 CMAs, Lainey Wilson hit the 2023 ACM Awards on Thursday (May 11) alongside Jelly Roll for a scorching take on their duet “Save Me.”

It was another knockout win for Wilson and an impressive showcase for Jelly Roll, who quickly became one of the biggest breakout success stories of 2023, shattering the record for most weeks atop Billboard’s Emerging Artists Chart in February.

Jelly Roll’s sound substantially draws on Southern hip-hop, but the Tennessee artist was in gritty country-blues mode on stage at the Ford Center at the Star in Frisco, Texas. Wilson demonstrated her deft ability to share the spotlight while still commanding attention on “Save Me” before segueing into a high-energy solo run-through of her song “Grease.”

“Grease” hails from Bell Bottom Country, which – shortly after Wilson and Jelly Roll’s performance – won the ACM Award for album of the year. “I’m blacking out,” Wilson joked as she took the stage. “I’m out of breath either because of that or this,” she said, pointing to the stage where she just performed and her new award.

You can see Jelly Roll’s live prowess front and center at Billboard’s first-ever Billboard Country Live event, which takes place in Nashville on June 6-7. Jelly Roll will perform at Marathon Music Works on June 6, with Garth Brooks participating in an intimate Q&A on June 7.

The ACM Awards are produced by Dick Clark Productions. DCP is owned by Penske Media Eldridge, a Penske Media Corporation (PMC) subsidiary and joint venture between PMC and Eldridge. PMC is the parent company of Billboard.

At Thursday night’s (May 11) 2023 Academy of Country Music Awards, Old Dominion took a moment during their group of the year acceptance speech to acknowledge recent mass shootings — including one over the weekend that took place just 20 minutes from the awards show venue.

Old Dominion singer Matthew Ramsey took the mic and marveled at the room full of legends inside Frisco, Texas’ Ford Center at The Star, but he also referenced people struggling to understand the “divisiveness and shootings” in our country.

“There are people obviously hurting in the world right now trying to figure out how to make sense of, you know, divisiveness and shootings and things like that,” Ramsey said. “There are people that are really hurting right now, and we’re so proud to be in a room full of country music fans and make music for those people, but we’re most proud to be able to make music for people that are hurting right now. So thank you for including us in this party and allowing us to make music for whoever needs it. We will continue to try and do so. And thank you to my friends here for holding me up when I need it.”

That last line referenced Ramsey steadying himself with a cane while making the speech, as he’s recovering from an ATV accident he suffered in March that forced the group to cancel a series of concerts.

On Saturday, a gunman opened fire at an outlet mall in Allen, Texas — around 14 miles from the ACM Awards venue — killing eight people and wounding seven others. The victims ranged in age from 3 to 37.

Watch Ramsey’s speech below:

Spoiler alert: This story contains the identity of the contestants eliminated on Wednesday night’s (May 10) episode of The Masked Singer.

You’d think that having five singers would give you a distinct advantage when going up against just one disguised vocalist on The Masked Singer. But on Wednesday night’s semifinal episode of the season, even after California Roll left it all on the stage with a killer version of Kelly Clarkson’s “Breakaway” and then went head-to-five-head against Macaw and Medusa in the Battle Royale round singing Bruno Mars’ “Runaway Baby,” it was time for the nori to meet the road.

Once again, the panel was split on who was under the adorable sushi getups, which had intrigued the panel for weeks as the group of singers showed impressive versatility, with a haunting take on Radiohead’s “Creep,” an epic cover of Lady Gaga’s “Paparazzi,” and perfect harmonies on Bonnie Tyler’s “Total Eclipse of the Heart.” As usual, panelist Ken Jeong was way off, suggesting Miami Sound Machine and the cast of In the Heights, while Nicole Scherzinger thought they might be the cast of Spring Awakening or Hamilton. Jenny McCarthy-Wahlberg was on-target again by voting for chart-topping vocal group Pentatonix.

As it turns out, she was right, and before the group’s elimination on Wednesday, Billboard caught up with members Scott Hoying, Kevin Olusola and Matt Sallee (the group also includes Mitch Grassi and Kirstin Maldonado) to find out how they got rolled into participating and why hitting their signature vocal harmonies was so hard with zero eye contact.

Were you fans of the show before you were booked, and why did it take so long to get you on there, because it seems like a natural fit?

Hoying: I love the show. I think it’s such a fun idea… totally over-the-top and the costumes are so beautiful. I remember watching it and seeing how moved the people were that were on the show because when you’re hidden behind the mask, you can change your voice and sing any way you want and express yourself in ways you don’t normally get to. People actually get emotional because they feel the freedom. We definitely had that [experience], and it was the least nervous I’ve ever been performing on a television show because it felt so cozy behind the mask and we could really unleash new parts of ourselves.

Matt, what were you able to do what you typically can’t onstage, or things you lean on when you perform?

Sallee: I thought it was really cool when we were going through the arranging process and we were really excited to try new sounds and instrumentation because we’re a cappella. We were thinking, “How can we make this as enjoyable as possible because of all the instrumentation we could use?” That’s something we’ve dabbled with in our more recent music, and we wanted to show an evolution of how we can be not just an a cappella group, but can also use other instruments and sounds and still have the same Pentatonix sound.

There’s something about being under those masks. Were you able to physically express yourselves in ways you normally wouldn’t?

Olusola: That’s one of the most fun parts of this. Normally, when you’re onstage and everyone sees you, not to say you’re self-conscious, but you’re very aware of how your body moves and your angles, how your face looks because the cameras are on you. It’s all part of the presentation. When you’re behind the mask, you can really go full-out because there’s a levity to the mask — it’s an interesting, funny character — so the fun and joy that you bring the more extra moments you have onstage lends really well. So if we’re kicking onstage, if we’re jumping around, if we’re having fun with the audience doing something that would normally look outlandish, it lends super well to this show. We really went full out and we would talk about it so much afterwards: “Did you really do that on stage!?” “Yeah, I did, and I’m happy about it!”

Anything that scared you about slipping into the sushi?

Hoying: Oh man, so many anxieties. I was worried at first because our sushis were so boxy when we were in them. I was afraid we were going to be echoey. I was literally being a nerd about the acoustics, and I was also worried about being really, really hot. I get hot really easily and I worried I wouldn’t be able to sing or perform. I was also worried about falling off the stage, because I couldn’t see through the mask super well peripherally.

With a vocal group, I imagine being able to see each other and make eye contact while singing is a huge deal. How hard was it to pull that off in these ridiculous costumes?

Sallee: I was really proud of us, because we sing together — we’re together a lot, more than with our families — so we know each other really well and there is this big trust built and natural cohesiveness when we sing together. I was really proud of us for doing that apart from each other. For one of the songs we were spread out throughout the studio and not even by each other singing together. Being able to hear each other and know in our in-ear monitors that we’re all there, it was not so terribly different when we’re not having giant sushi rolls on top of us.

It’s hard enough to do choreo on a good day, but how much harder was it when you can’t see each other? Were you counting steps, worried that you would knock each other over?

Olusola: That was my main fear. You’re looking through a very limited hole, and so because of that, it limits your ability to see and your visibility is lower. That’s something I had to be extremely aware about, but also knowing that I wanted to go full out because the character I got to play. That was one of the things where my brain and body had to be in synchronization in a completely different way. At the same time, we still had so much fun and we still went full out! At some point, when you got to the actual show, we had rehearsed it enough to kind of trust our bodies, trust our ability to perform and not make any mistakes that will cause bodily harm.

Medusa seems pretty formidable. Any idea who she is?

Hoying: We have no idea, but she is sooo good! Just one of those undeniable voices, just oh my gosh.

Will you be adding any of the songs from your Masked run to your upcoming summer tour?

Hoying: I think so. I think we’ll definitely do a couple of them.