Friday, Sept. 11, 2026 | 2 a.m.
A Las Vegas showgirl headdress has galore virtues, but concision is not 1 of them.
Old Dominion has built a vocation connected songs with titles that onshore quickly: “Snapback,” “Hotel Key,” “One Man Band.” The 16 showgirls who joined the state radical Friday astatine PH Live astatine Planet Hollywood brought a small much syllabic ambition. Their white, pinkish and pink-and-black feathered headdresses towered supra sequined pinkish and metallic costumes, turning the signifier into thing person to a accumulation number.
The showgirls archetypal appeared during “Late Great Heartbreak,” opus 3 of Old Dominion’s archetypal of 2 sold-out "Old Dominion. Hits. Vegas." performances. They returned for the encore, erstwhile the set moved onto an extended signifier for “Hawaii” and “I Was connected a Boat That Day.”
The headpieces are excessively big, and possibly excessively wordy, to ever find their mode into an Old Dominion hook. “Snapback” is 2 syllables and instantly sings itself. “Pink-and-black feathered showgirl headdress” is much similar a signifier direction.
But that was the constituent of the Vegas treatment. Old Dominion’s top plus is its quality to marque adjacent a 7,000-seat theatre consciousness similar a radical singalong among friends. Friday’s amusement added conscionable capable sequins, feathers and theatrical standard to conscionable the juncture without obscuring the songs that carried the set from Nashville songwriter circles to arena and amphitheater headliners.
The assemblage remained connected its feet for virtually the full performance that Friday night. That unsocial is not antithetic astatine an Old Dominion show, but the assemblage Sept. 4 appeared noticeably older than, for example, the assemblage astatine the band’s November 2021 performance astatine the Chelsea astatine the Cosmopolitan. The energy, however, had not softened. If anything, the evening played similar a reunion for fans who knew the catalog good capable to sing not conscionable the vigor staples but the petition selections too.
“Make It Sweet,” “Snapback,” “Hotel Key” and “One Man Band” generated the evening’s astir reliable wide choruses. During “Hotel Key,” frontman Matthew Ramsey gathered cardinal cards from respective consenting assemblage members, extending the song’s premise beyond the lyric and into the beforehand rows.
The set besides fielded opus requests from the assemblage and responded with impromptu performances of “Beer Can successful a Truck,” “Paint the Grass Green” and “I Should Have Married You,” the benignant of selections that reinforced the extent of Old Dominion’s following. The group’s 9 country-radio No. 1 songs explicate the wide familiarity successful the room; the requests suggested their fans admit the set beyond the songs that person the heaviest airplay.
Old Dominion’s 5 members — Ramsey, guitarist Brad Tursi, guitarist and keyboardist Trevor Rosen, bassist Geoff Sprung and drummer Whit Sellers — person spent much than a decennary refining that equilibrium betwixt the easygoing and the cautiously constructed. Their songs thin to get with conversational lyrics, melodic guitars and choruses designed to beryllium sung back. That look has helped the multiplatinum modern state radical transcend 6 cardinal on-demand streams, gain a twelve RIAA Platinum and Gold azygous certifications, and header internationally.
The band’s record-setting awards tally has followed. Old Dominion entered the twelvemonth with its 11th consecutive Academy of Country Music Group of the Year information and is an eight-time ACM Group of the Year winner. The radical besides won the Country Music Association’s Group of the Year grant for 7 consecutive years; combined, its ACM and CMA full surpasses that of immoderate different state enactment successful the category.
Still, Ramsey spent overmuch of Friday’s amusement moving successful the other absorption of résumé-building grandeur. He made country for moving jokes, tiny gestures and the benignant of assemblage enactment that makes a polished touring accumulation consciousness loose.
At 1 point, helium introduced Tursi arsenic “New Dad Brad” and cracked, “You cognize it’s atrocious erstwhile you gotta travel to Vegas to get immoderate sleep.”
Elsewhere, a prop from Old Dominion tours past — a sofa — returned to the stage. Making enactment of the occasion, Ramsey invited 2 young children to beryllium connected it for the adjacent respective songs, a goofy, unexpectedly home representation amid the theater-ready lighting and video screens.
Midway done the set, successful what Ramsey called a “welfare check,” helium paused to marque definite the assemblage was having the benignant of nighttime helium hoped it was having.
“I conscionable wanted to marque definite that erstwhile you permission here, you are amended than erstwhile you got here,” helium said.
A fewer songs later, not agelong earlier the encore, the set gave the assemblage its archetypal perceive to “Miles and Miles of Missing You.” Ramsey framed the infinitesimal arsenic a trial thrust alternatively than a ceremonial premiere, telling the assemblage that Old Dominion has agelong utilized unrecorded shows to gauge however caller worldly lands.
“The mode we’ve tested our songs is to play them live,” helium said. “Since we person a captive audience, we thought we’d springiness this a go.”
That sentiment recovered its astir resonant mounting conscionable earlier the encore. “Song for Another Time,” 1 of the band’s astir durable instrumentality favorites, is constructed from references to classical songs — “Brown Eyed Girl,” “I’m So Lonesome I Could Cry,” “Little Pink Houses” and “Sweet Caroline” among them; adjacent its close, Ramsey repeated 3 times the enactment astir singing “I Will Always Love You.” The repetition was intelligibly a tribute to the precocious departed Dolly Parton, and it gave the nighttime a little infinitesimal of reflection earlier its last crook toward celebration.
Then came the encore and the instrumentality of the showgirls.
As the set gathered astir Ramsey connected the extended signifier and the sequined performers stood connected the main signifier down him, helium addressed the first-night crowd. He thanked fans for selling retired some Las Vegas dates and for making a star-driven amusement marketplace consciousness unusually welcoming.
“This is an amusement metropolis wherever a batch of the champion performers come, and we’ve been capable to merchantability retired 2 nights here, truthful we convey you truthful overmuch for liking our euphony successful specified a immense way,” Ramsey said. “When you travel retired here, you consciousness comfortable. From the commencement of the show, there’s thing but smiling faces from the beforehand to the back. And that is conscionable the champion that you could ever springiness us. Thank you, convey you, convey you.”
For “Hawaii,” the set members wore leis. For “I Was connected a Boat That Day,” the country supplied the chorus, the showgirls supplied the feathers and Old Dominion supplied the breezy crowd-closer that has go 1 of its defining unrecorded moments.
The Vegas-showgirl instrumentality was not wholly new. During the group’s 2025 PH Live engagement, showgirls appeared during the aforesaid 2 songs, “Late Great Heartbreak” and “I Was connected a Boat That Day,” arsenic portion of what promoters characterized arsenic a Vegas-scale production. This year’s run, presented arsenic a career-spanning, hit-focused celebration, leaned much deliberately connected the catalog that made Old Dominion a reliable unrecorded draw.
In Nashville, a hook has to acceptable successful a chorus. In Las Vegas, it lone has to capable the stage.
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