Rock heavyweights Shinedown made their Grand Ole Opry debut this past Friday, playing a three-song set that marked the debut of a brand-new tune, “Searchlight.” Country superstar (and noted hard-rock and nu-metal fan) Carrie Underwood introduced the band, who received a standing ovation from the crowd.
“It is always an honor, and so exciting for me to be at the Opry,” Underwood said. “Tonight, I am especially honored and excited to introduce our next group. I saw these guys back in concert in 2004 when I was a wee college student and basically, they have not been able to get rid of me ever since! I know that they too are very excited to be here, they love country music, and they love and respect the Grand Ole Opry so much. Tonight, I hear they may even have a special surprise in store for us! Making their Grand Ole Opry debut, make some noise for Shinedown!”
The band delivered by performing two cuts off 2022’s Planet Zero — “A Symptom of Being Human” and “Three Six Five” — as well as “Searchlight,” an introspective ballad with a country-ish lilt.
“Sometimes, if you’ll listen close enough to the universe and you’re willing to receive something from it,” Shinedown singer Brent Smith said onstage of the tune. “A song can kind of come out of thin air [and that] is something that we don’t take for granted. That’s essentially what happened with this next song. We didn’t find it — it found us. This is the debut of a song that we like to call ‘Searchlight.'”
Watch footage of the historic performance above and below.