Eric Church, Keith Urban, Darius Rucker and Lady Antebellum opened the 2017 Country Music Association Awards with a touching performance honoring the 58 people killed at a country music festival last month.
The Wednesday night awards show in Nashville, Tennessee, kicked off with Church singing an emotional version of "Amazing Grace," later joined by the other performers for "Hold My Hand."
At the Route 91 Harvest Festival in Las Vegas on Oct. 1, a gunman fired on the crowd from a hotel room while Jason Aldean was onstage. Nearly 500 people were injured.
Reba McEntire, Luke Bryan, Thomas Rhett, Tim McGraw and others joined in to sing along at the Bridgestone Arena, earning a large applause from the crowd.
"This has been a year marked by tragedy ... Tonight we're going to do what families do, come together, pray together, cry together and sing together, too," co-host Carrie Underwood said.
"This show is dedicated to all those we lost," fellow host Brad Paisley said.
Paisley and Underwood are celebrating their 10-year anniversary — as hosts of the CMAs. They joked at the top of the show about CMA sending restrictions to press about what to ask singers on the red carpet, saying they shouldn't ask about politics or guns. They also riffed on politics, taking shots at both President Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton.
"Maybe next time he'll think before he tweets," they sang to the beat of Underwood's massive hit, "Before He Cheats."