New Year’s Eve: Nashville’s Big Bash is shaping up to be one of the most star-studded lineups of all time. Luke Combs, Lainey Wilson, Luke Bryan, Eric Church, Miranda Lambert, Tyler Hubbard, Post Malone, Chris Stapleton, Shaboozey, Zach Top and Brittney Spencer will now perform as part of the five-hour televised special. They join a previously-announced list of artists performing, which includes Jelly Roll and Kane Brown, along with Keith Urban, with Urban performing double-duty as a performer and co-host, working alongside Entertainment Tonight‘s Rachel Smith.
Urban, along with his wife, Nicole Kidman and their two daughters, will be spending the holidays in Australia, although unlike previous years, this year he will return to Music City before the year ends.
‘We still love going to the beach at Christmas time, as long as we’re in Australia, because it’s like the Fourth of July,” the singer reveals. “It’s huge. Everybody’s out. It feels very celebratory. It’s in the 90s. It’s crazy, but having grown up with that, it feels very natural to me. Albeit it, we still had all of the same Christmas songs, so we’re in like 90-degree heat with shorts and tank tops singing ‘Walking in a Winter Wonderland.’ I remember getting Christmas cards of like Santa on a surfboard, so that probably explains a lot.”
Wilson’s end-of-the-year celebration might be the kick-off to her most monumental year yet. The 32-year-old hints that, after an unprecedented year of success in 2024, she is anticipating an even bigger year in 2025.
“We’re gonna be touring,” Wilson tells Variety. “We’re in the weeds of figuring all that out right now. But it’s fun. As our team grows and as the career grows and everything, with more people having their hands on things, it’s starting to really start to run like a well-oiled machine. And, because it happened so fast, it was just like, ‘Wham, bam, thank you, ma’am.’ But all of a sudden we’ve got lots of new team members, and I feel like now we’re kind of starting to get into the groove of it. So we’re just gonna be touring a lot, and hopefully filming some more stuff. We’ll see what that looks like. Just being creative — that’s what I want to do.”
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Bryan’s favorite New Year’s Eve memory happened a long, long time ago, when he had just begun dating his now-wife, Caroline, whom he wed in 2006.
“My best New Year’s Eve is definitely when my wife and I started back dating,” the singer recalls. “We started back dating right before Christmas and we went on a trip down to Florida and met some friends. And her birthday is New Year’s Eve. We celebrated it that night and it was just a great night.”
Hubbard might have a hard time topping his previous favorite New Year’s Eve celebration, which happened in the Big Apple.
“Well, this is probably a classic answer, but we did play New Year’s in New York and watched the ball drop and it was a big, special moment, one of those kind of check it off the bucket list type of moments,” Hubbard says. “And it is incredible. The energy’s amazing, and it’s super cold, but we had a great time. When I think of epic New Year’s, that’s definitely, it’s probably the first memory that comes to mind.”
New Year’s Eve Live: Nashville’s Big Bash will air on CBS on December 31, from 8:00 to 10:00 PM ET and 10:30 PM to 1:30 AM ET, and stream on Paramount+. The free show will take place at Nashville’s Bicentennial Capitol Mall State Park.