Lainey Wilson opened the 2024 Academy of Country Music Awards with a one-two punch of country flair: a cover of Little Texas’s 1993 hit “God Blessed Texas” and the TV debut of her own “Hang Tight Honey.”

Flanked by her road band (with whom she recorded her upcoming album Whirlwind), Wilson, dazzling in red, roared through “Hang Tight Honey,” a high-octane country banger about reassuring your lover that you’re on your way home. “Just one more day to get through,” she sang. “Hang tight honey got a pocket full of money/and I’m headed straight home to you.”

The star is up for four awards this year including Entertainer of the Year, Female Artist of the Year, Song of the Year for “Heart Like a Truck,” and Music Event of the Year with Jelly Roll for “Save Me.”

In 2023, Wilson swept the ACM Awards and was the most nominated country artist along with Hardy. The song won the pair Music Event of the Year and Music Video of the Year, while Lainey took home the most awards that night — including wins for Female Artist of the Year and Album of the Year for Bell Bottom Country (which also picked up the country album Grammy).

Earlier this month, Wilson announced that her new album, Whirlwind, would be released on Aug. 23. When speaking to Billboard this month, Wilson described the project as the “the Western sister of Bell Bottom Country.”

“Whether I’m running into somebody and they’re saying, ‘Man, your life has been a whirlwind,’ or whether the word’s coming out of my mouth, or I open a book and see the word ‘whirlwind,’ it just seems to be surrounding me,” she told the outlet. “Whirlwinds cause turbulence that cause chaos. But at the end of the day, you figure out how to come back to the center.” 

Wilson also announced that she’s getting into the bar business: Her Nashville honky-tonk Bell Bottoms Up is slated to open this summer, taking over the site of the former FGL House.