Bluegrass superstar and Music City local Billy Strings on Friday helped kick off Game 6 of the NHL playoff series between the Predators and the Canucks with a pre-game performance of the national anthem at Nashville’s Bridgestone Arena—a venue with which the Grammy-winning artist is quite familiar.
While he appeared with his acoustic guitar in hand, Strings provided simple accompaniment and relied largely on his pipes for this country-soul reading of “The Star-Spangled Banner”. Late in the famously wordy song, Billy accidentally mixed up a few of its lyrics (“gave through to the night” instead of “gave proof through the night”), but he laughed it off in a post on social media about the performance. In addition to including the hashtags “#whenyoufuckupthenationalanthemonliveteleevision” and “#ohwell,” Billy responded to a comment about the lyric mix-up by noting, “I practiced all damn day and I knew I was gonna fuck that up. Then I did 
.”
While the Predators later took a loss and were eliminated from Stanley Cup contention that night, Nashville fans can take solace in the fact that they caught a bit of Billy before being ousted. Watch Billy Strings perform the national anthem at Friday night’s NHL playoff game in Nashville below.
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Billy Strings is in the midst of a busy year on the road. Following a performance at Big As Texas Festival on May 11th, Billy and company will begin the May portion of their 2024 spring tour at Greenwood Village, CO’s Fiddler’s Green Amphitheatre for their two biggest Colorado shows to date on May 17th and 18th. The spring run will wrap up with a one-off show at The Armory in Minneapolis, MN (5/21) and a two-night run at Allstate Arena in Rosemont, IL (5/24, 5/25).
Aside from the set at Big As Texas, all of Billy Strings’ spring 2024 tour dates will be livestreamed via nugs. Subscribe to nugs here for exclusive access to all of the upcoming Billy Strings livestreams. [Editor’s Note: Live For Live Music is a nugs affiliate. Ordering your nugs subscription via the links on this page helps support our coverage of the world of live music. Thank you for reading!]
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