FLW announced today that country music star Trace Adkins will put on a free concert in conjunction with the 2019 FLW Cup in Hot Springs, Ark. The concert will take place at 4 p.m. on Aug. 11 on the stage at Bank OZK Arena prior to the final-day weigh-in.
A Nashville icon for more than two decades, Adkins has made his mark on the country-music industry with 11 million albums sold, time-honored hit singles, Gramny nominations, and CMT and ACM awards, to name a few of his accomplishments. His videos have nearly 200 million plays on YouTube, and he’s even had movie and TV roles come his way. But ask Adkins what’s left to prove in his career, and the small-town Louisiana native says it’s simple: “The itch remains. To create. To collaborate. To continually feel the excitement that comes after whipping up a new song out of thin air and laying it down to tape.”
It’s an interesting change of perspective for Adkins, however, when he hits the road for his now legendary live gigs. Where the studio offers him unique insight into his current state of mind, onstage, when revisiting his classic songs like “You’re Gonna Miss This” or “Every Light in the House” nearly every evening, he says he’s taken back, if only for a brief while, to earlier moments in his life.
“It’s hard to describe, I gotta be honest,” Adkins says of being overcome with emotion and reflection when trotting out some of his time-tested cuts for adoring audiences. “I’ve gotten to the point now where I’ll be onstage singing ‘Every Light In The House Is On,’ and I look down at the crowd and realize that person right there wasn’t even alive when I recorded that song,” he laughs. “To watch their face go, ‘Oh, that’s a cool hook,’ it’s like Oh my god, that’s the first time that person ever heard that song!”
With 1 million followers on Spotify and more than 1 billion spins on Pandora (10 million spins per month), the longstanding country icon has yet to lose any of his trademark passion and killer instinct for his craft.
“We are ecstatic to welcome Trace Adkins to the 2019 FLW Cup stage in Hot Springs, Ark.,” said Kelly Oettinger, FLW Vice President of Marketing. “Trace is a superstar in the world of country music and we are honored to have him perform. We have a longstanding tradition of providing the absolute best tournament experiences for millions of FLW fishing fans across the country and around the world. Having Trace perform at the crown jewel of professional bass fishing is a perfect fit to continue that tradition.”
