Sabrina Carpenter made her Grand Ole Opry debut on Tuesday evening (Oct. 7) as part of the Opry 100 Birthday celebration, which also featured performances from ERNEST, Lukas Nelson, Kaitlin Butts, Marcus King, Kameron Marlowe, Laci Kaye Booth, Riders In The Sky and special guest Jamey Johnson.
Following an introduction by country music icon Sheryl Crow, the red curtain lifted to reveal Sabrina Carpenter in a sparkling black dress and heels, launching into her four-song performance with “Please Please Please.”
“I am so pleased to welcome a two-time Grammy Award-winning global superstar whose new album ‘Man’s Best Friend’ debuted at No. 1,” Crow said, introducing Carpenter to the Opry circle for the first time ever. “Making her Opry debut, please welcome Sabrina Carpenter!”
The 26-year-old pop star stopped to address the sold-out crowd after performing “Please Please Please.”
“My name is Sabrina. So nice to meet you. Firstly, I just want to say thank you to the Grand Ole Opry for opening your doors to me and to this incredible band. I mean, so much of making my newest album was like a pedal steel, a banjo and a dream,” Carpenter said with a big smile on her face. “So I’m really, really lucky to have so many talented people on stage tonight. So thank you to the Grand Ole Opry for having us. Sheryl Crow just introduced me, which is really crazy. Thank you. That’s such an honor. I can’t even tell you what that means to me. And I’m just the biggest fan, and I know you are one of many legends that have stood right here. Some of my favorites, my favorite artists growing up.”
She then explained that she grew up on country music artists like Patsy Cline, Loretta Lynn and Dolly Parton, despite growing up in East Greenville, Pennsylvania, a small town just outside of Philadelphia. “I’m not technically a country girl from Pennsylvania, and so that’s not technically country, but I’ve seen a couple cows in the middle of the road, so I just sort of took it as like, you guys are my people too. And when you see cows in the middle of the road, you’re like, well, I’m not in the city, so I might as well just be in the country,” she explained while laughing.
Carpenter continued, “And that music inspired me and my mom raised me on the artist that stood here, like Patsy Cline and Loretta Lynn, of course, my favorite Dolly Parton and so many more. I also want to give a shout-out to all the artists that have played tonight on this stage before me. I just got to be backstage watching the best show ever and just being so blown away about all the talent.”
She then delivered the live debut of a fiddle-laden new song, titled “Go Go Juice,” from her latest album, Man’s Best Friend. “This is the end of the night, so I’m hoping everyone’s feeling a little loose, ready to do a little dancing, that’s why I wore this dress. I just put out this new album and I wanted to sing a new song for you guys if that’s okay. I was going out to dinner one night with my friends, and they said ‘are we drinking tonight’ and I said ‘I’m just drinking to call someone’ and then I wrote ‘Go Go Juice’ and this is our first time playing it.”
During her performance of “Go Go Juice,” she shocked fans with a kazoo solo as she twirled and danced around the stage.
The hitmaker also engaged with the crowd, and at one moment, she pointed out a young fan dressed in an outfit, a white corset dress paired with white socks and glittery platinum heels, that closely resembled one Carpenter wore during her New Year’s Eve performance in Times Square in 2023.
“I love that outfit, I wore that outfit,” Carpenter said as she pointed at her with a huge smile. “That blows my mind. Your mom helped you make that? Ok, it’s so wholesome here in Nashville.”
Sabrina Carpenter also paused to thank her fans and the country music community for embracing her and giving her the opportunity to perform on the iconic Nashville stage.
“If you’re a fan of country music, I assume this is why you are here. And I just want to give you all my thanks because I know that you guys are very picky, and I know that you don’t welcome people onto your stage and into your world so easily, but you really raised me with your music and you being fans of this music is what is continuing this legacy and allowing artists to be able to experiment and also just feel inspired, and it’s really beautiful,” Carpenter told the crowd. “So each and every one of you here that loves and adores country music that was raised on it, thank you so much for doing that because you’re the reason we all get to be here and do what we love. And we’re just very, very grateful.”
She closed out her four-song set with “Slim Pickins” and her chart-topping viral hit “Manchild,” which prompted a massive sing-along from the capacity crowd.
“Grand Ole Opry thank you so much for having us tonight. I’ll see you next time!” she said to a standing ovation.
