Country Fest 2023

May 12th, 2023 Grand Prairies’ Texas Trust CU Theater hosted “Country Fest 2023” put on by 95.5 The Wolf and 96.3 KSCS with the help from several sponsors which included Kroger, Dodge City in McKinney, and Cc Caprpets, Army, Twin Peaks, Big Wraps, Applebees and others.

The lineup featured Justin Moore, Eli Young Band, Casey Cagell, and rising star Priscilla Block.

Pricilla Block comes on stage with her hair up in a ponytail on top of her beautiful blond, flowing locks. She broke into country music after moving to Nashville from a TikTok video that went viral and caught the eye of music executives that got her signed. That song was “Just About Over You” which has garnered over 14 million views. One listener, Morgan Ashley on YouTube wrote “I’m literally crying for you rn. This is literally every girl’s song after finally leaving a toxic ex, on behalf of every woman THANK YOU.” with a heart emoji. There appeared to be many Pricilla fans in attendance that dressed similarly with sparkly, sequined outfits carrying signs that read Block Party on them. Before her last song, she breaks out with “What do you think about big thighs?”. After a loud, rousing applause, and screams from a bunch of folks, she sang “Thick Thighs”.

On stage with The Wolf and KSCS Celebrities were two victims of the Las Vegas concert shooting that had been shot and survived and a survivor of the massacre in the Florida nightclub. They were here making folks aware of Victimsfirst.org. Go check it out. They are accepting donations and 100% of the proceeds go to help victims.  VictimsFirst is dedicated to helping victims of mass shootings, terrorist attacks, and other mass casualty crimes.  Had a moment of prayer for Allen shooting victims.

Chris Cagle was up next and what a character this guy is. I say that in a good way. Passioned filled, funny, smiling, loud, and just full of energy from one side of the stage to the other. From the things he said you could tell that he was glad to be here, performing. He repeated several times how grateful he was for the opportunity to do, “THIS”, what he was doing right now. He said we’ve been doing this for 23 years on the road and there is no place like Texas. I always can count on Texas to show up.  Just a pleasure to watch and I would buy a ticket to see him perform himself.

What can I say, Eli Young Band hits the stage after Chris and they are stars around here. With 5 albums over 20 years in the business and they are smooth. Playing “Drunk Last Night”, “Even if it breaks your heart”, “Love Aint”, “Love Talking”. Michelle had announced they would have a special guest come out on stage in a bit. It was his daughter that came on stage and sang “Saltwater Gospel” with him. She did an awesome job.

The star of the night was Justin Moore. After the 1st 2 songs Justin puts his guitar down and adorned in his white straw cowboy hat grabs the mic and says, “Glad to be back here in Texas where I don’t have to explain cowboy hats, boots, and country music when I come here either. We’re hopefully going to play every old song you want to hear over the last 16 years of doing this. Yall have been awesome to us, we have a lot of hit records and we want to play for you. We also have a brand new album that came out two weeks ago called Stray Dogs and we’re going to play a couple off of that as well.” He also paid tribute to men and women of the armed services, first responders, police officers, firefighters, doctors, nurses, teachers, and on and on. After giving a shout out to all of those folks Justin said “I ain’t trying to get political, and if that is too political for you, then pack your shit and get the hell out of here. Don’t ever come back to see us play.  I ain’t apologizing for what I said. We are going to dedicate this song to all of the above and especially to the ones that went to work one day and never made it back home”.

He played a full set including, “You look like I need a drink.”, “Til My Last Day”, “The Ones That Didn’t Make it Back Home”, “Bait A Hook”, “Somebody Else Will”, “Lettin’ The Night Roll”, and “Stray Dog” with a total of 12 or 13 songs with his encore, and I would have to say my favorite songs of the night were “If Heaven Wasn’t So Far Away” and “Small Town USA”. If this guy is somewhere around you be sure to get a ticket and go see him. Passionate cowboy.

They all are country stars in their own right and all put on a great show. Shout out to New Country 96.3 and 99.5 The Wolf and all of the sponsors for putting on a great country show in Grand Prairie. And to all the country fans that showed up tonight.