The show opened with a spotlight on Reba McEntire in the center of the famous Opry stage as she sang “Sweet Dreams” by Patsy Cline over a simple arrangement.

It was immediately clear the special magic of Nashville’s Grand Ole Opry would be properly captured in NBC’s “Opry 100: A Live Celebration.”

It shouldn’t have been a surprise. The Opry is an organization that produces hundreds of concerts each year — for 100 years. But even for the Opry, there were a lot of moving parts on Wednesday evening. The 100th anniversary celebration didn’t just feature two-thirds of the radio program’s 75 living cast members at the Opry House and Ryman Auditorium.

It showcased that membership, including recent inductees Luke Combs, Steven Curtis Chapman, Ashley McBryde, Carly Pearce and Lainey Wilson alongside pop superstar and Opry friend Post Malone, plus legends like Barbara Mandrell and Marty Stuart.

As noted by the Opry’s oldest and longest-tenured cast member, 87-year-old “Whisperin'” Bill Anderson who was inducted in 1961, the special highlighted how the Opry “has maintained a history of celebrating music’s best performers and performances.”

Here were the night’s top moments.

Carrie Underwood and Randy Travis bring crowd to tears

Carrie Underwood began her tribute performance with a story about listening to her sister’s Randy Travis cassette tape — a tape she said she would never give back. Years later, it would be Travis who would invite Underwood to become a member of the Grand Ole Opry in 2008.

Five years after that, Travis suffered a near-fatal stroke that left him largely unable to sing.

On the Opry stage, Underwood performed her two favorite songs by Travis, “Three Wooden Crosses“ and “Forever and Ever Amen.” She ended the song by stepping off the stage and greeting Travis, who was seated on the front row.

Underwood held the microphone out and let Travis sing the song’s final word … “amen,” which he did with a beautiful smile.

The house was moved to tears.

Lainey Wilson plays Hank Williams’ guitar

For the first Ryman performance of the night, Lainey Wilson stood alongside singer-songwriter Marty Stuart to pay tribute to Hank Williams, the country music icon known for songs “Hey, Good Lookin’ and “I’m So Lonesome I Could Die.”

Stuart surprised Wilson by handing her one of Williams’ guitars, which she played alongside Stuart as they covered Williams’ 1948 song “Lonesome Highway.”

After that stirring tribute, Wilson wasn’t ready to part with the guitar. “I gotta give this thing back now?” she asked Stuart.

But she didn’t have to just yet.

Stuart and Wilson then duetted on Wilson’s 2021 song “Things A Man Oughta Know.”

Eric Church performs at NBC’s Opry 100: A Live Celebration event at the Grand Ole Opry in Nashville, Tenn., Wednesday, March 19, 2025.

Eric Church pays tribute to shooting victims

Eric Church provided one of the most moving moments of the night.

He told the silent crowd that he performed at the Route 91 Harvest Festival in Las Vegas in 2017, the night of deadliest mass shooting in America. At the festival, a mass shooter open fired on festival attendees, killing 58 people and injuring about 500 others.

“I played the Opry stage after playing the festival in Las Vegas, and I did not want to be here,” he said.

But Church credits the show and people in the audience with “repairing a piece of my heart that night.”

Church delivered an emotional, raw acoustic performance of his song “Why Not Me,” a song he wrote for the victims of the Las Vegas shooting. And during the poignant, powerful and moving performance and speech, the Opry House audience could have heard a pin drop.

He sang: “And when the morning sun hits the mountain / And a glorious still calms the breeze / I’ll ask the God of infinite wisdom / Why you and why not me?”

Everyone loves the ’90s

Class of 1989 country favorites Clint Black, Garth Brooks, Alan Jackson and Travis Tritt, and timeless country favorite Vince Gill were all inducted as Grand Ole Opry cast members between 1990 and 1992.

Celebrating the 100th anniversary of the Grand Ole Opry without their contributions would seem inappropriate.

Brooks (and his wife, fellow Opry member Trisha Yearwood) honored George Jones’ musical legacy. While Jackson sang his hit “Chattahoochee,” Black joined event host Blake Shelton and Trace Adkins for a medley of ’90s country hits, including Black’s “Nothin’ But The Taillights.”

As for Tritt, he was joined by Post Malone for a take on Tritt’s “T.R.O.U.B.L.E.” Before the show, Tritt joined The Tennessean on the red carpet and was stunned by having met the “F-1 Trillion” album vocalist backstage.

Tritt noted Malone’s “sincere, authentic appreciation for country music” he brought to the Opry stage impressed him.

Gill feted the over 150 Opry members the institution has lost over the last century, joined by fellow Opry member Ricky Skaggs and others for an impassioned take on his classic “Go Rest High on That Mountain,” dedicated to his 99-year-old mother.

Dozens of Opry members pay tribute to Dolly Parton

The celebration closed out with an emotional tribute to Dolly Parton, who did not appear at the show in person.

Around 50 Grand Ole Opry members gathered on stage behind Hillary Scott, Charles Kelley and Dave Haywood of Lady A, who stood with Reba McEntire and Carrie Underwood.

The five at the stage front took the lead on Parton’s hit “I Will Always Love You” as the Opry members sang in a choir behind.

“Good-bye, please don’t cry / ‘Cause we both know that I’m not / What you need,” they sang. “But I will always love you / I will always love you.”

Before the tribute to Parton, a video of Dolly herself played on the screen before the Opry.

“I wanted to be on the Grand Ole Opry my whole life when I was a little kid, cause that’s just what you do when you sing country music, that’s where you want to go,” she said. “And I am proud to say that my family, all the folks at the Grand Ole Opry, are very near and dear to me. And I have been a member of the Opry for 56 years.”

The stirring performance of “I Will Always Love You,” Parton’s emotional 1974 ballad, follows the death of her husband, Carl Dean, on March 3.

Dean died in Nashville at 82 years old after a nearly 60-year-long marriage to Parton.

“Carl and I spent many wonderful years together,” Parton wrote on social media earlier this month. “Words can’t do justice to the love we shared for over 60 years. Thank you for your prayers and sympathies.”

This article originally appeared on Nashville Tennessean: Opry 100 celebration honors Dolly Parton, Randy Travis: Top moments