
Flowing mullets, some twanging pedal steel guitars and cowboy boots turned the Fisher Center for Performing Arts into a display of country music on Saturday.
Country Showcase this year featured a lineup of Ella Gibson, Gabriella Pasqua, Emmy Moyen and Anniston Pate. The artists and their bands came dressed in bright denim and cowboy hats to show Belmont University a rootin’ tootin’ good time.
Holding a Gibson guitar, Ella Gibson opened the show donned in bellbottom jeans and a matching denim jacket.

The rest of her band, clad in cowboy and baseball hats, leather boots and bell-bottom jeans, twanged along with Gibson through her set.
The fiddle slides were complemented by the hum of electric guitars and a bass.
The band left it all on the stage including even the remnants of destroyed instruments.

“A broken tambourine that’s something I haven’t seen at a showcase before,” emcee Carter Guse said between sets.
Guse kept the crowd entertained before teeing up Emmy Moyen to take the stage.

She appeared center stage, while the rest of her band remained in the dark before once again bringing the Fisher to life.
Moyen in white boots and a similar denim outfit to Gibson, emulated the energy from the first set.
As she began to close her first song, three stools were brought out for her, her guitarist and fiddle player to perform a slower song and bring a hush over the crowd.
The slow melodic fiddle accentuated the light strumming of the guitar and had the entire crowd focused centerstage.

As the final notes strummed on the guitar, the crowd broke the silence and applauded.
They would keep that energy going as Moyen would describe her final song called “Prayer Requests,” which was a comical play on the way gossip can spread through small towns disguised as concerns for others.
She skipped around between band members spreading different requests for prayer as the crowd clapped along to the tune.
Gabriella Pasqua would come up next dawned in a red dress and matching scarlet guitar.
She performed her songs as wheat fields and cowboys sped past on the screens behind her.
She crooned out through her first song about someone missing their one and only love.

Her band was smaller than the prior bands, giving her performance a more personal and intimate feeling.
Her final song, “Soldier Song,” brought the audience to tears as she described the difficulties and longing that can come from having a family member in the armed forces.
An American flag waved on the screen in the background against a light blue sky while she sang out to the crowd.

Closing out the lineup of performances, Aniston Pate strutted center stage as the drums slowly built up a beat like thunder signaling her arrival.
Donning a leopard print jacket, a black cowboy hat and matching boots she rocked the stage.
She closed out the individual performances with her newest song “Honky Tonk Without a Woman,” an ode to how much friends can impact a night out, or more specifically at the honky tonk.

While the judges deliberated, the country showcase quartet would come out one final time to the fisher stage but this time to perform together.
They played country favorites such as “Any Man of Mine,” “Suds in the Bucket” and “Will the Circle Be Unbroken.”
As they made the final transition off-stage, Guse would come out along with the producers to announce the judge’s decision.
Pate was crowned the winner of the Country Showcase and will also be performing at CMA Fest this June.

She will return with Meredith Aguirre, RAWHONEY. and Izzy Potter for the Best of the Best Showcase later this semester.
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This article was written by Braden Simmons
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