Miranda Lambert, Shania Twain and More Accept Awards at ACM Honors: 'Tonight Feels a Lot Like a Miracle'

Shania Twain and Miranda Lambert didn't have to sing a note at the ACM Honors awards show on Aug. 24 in Nashville, but their outsized influence still dominated the evening with four electric tribute performances.

Kicking off the show, Kelsea Ballerini wowed the Ryman Auditorium crowd by going full Shania on "Man, I Feel Like a Woman," and later, pop-punker Avril Lavigne surprised with her sparkling mastery of Twain's "No One Needs to Know."

For Lambert, Little Big Town soared with their celestial harmonies on "The House That Built Me," and Hall of Famers Brooks & Dunn doubled the accelerant on "Kerosene," Lambert's fiery scorned-woman anthem.

The lovefests for the two superstars, however, were hardly the only highlights of an evening that teemed with stars, thrills and surprises — and TV cameras were there to record it all for airing on Sept. 13 on a two-hour FOX network special.

For the first time in five years, the annual awards show is getting a national broadcast, and fans everywhere will once again get to experience an event that truly celebrates the heart and soul of country: the songwriting, the musicianship, the artistry, and the behind-the-scenes players who've devoted their lives to the genre.

If only for that, this is "the country music industry's favorite night," host Carly Pearce, the ACM's reigning female artist of the year, said in her opening.

But blessedly, the evening also offers something else for participants: relief from the anxiety of envelopes opening. Winners are revealed months in advance, which means the only competition comes in performers trying to outdo themselves to pay homage to the honorees.

Twain, 56, was one of two recipients of the ACM Poet's Award, a salute to songwriting, and she was clearly relishing a tribute to a talent that's often taken a back seat to her glitzy performances.

But to Twain, the songwriting is what's "the most important," she told PEOPLE before the show. "I'm a performer," she explained. "Obviously, I'm a recording artist. But all of those things are what present the song. Without this recognition, it's just not complete to me."

Still, Ballerini made sure no one could forget Twain's glamour, channeling the epic "Man, I Feel Like a Woman" video in her own top hat, tie, sexy trench coat and form-fitting dress. Her black boots may have come just to the calves instead of the thighs, but with the help of a half-dozen shirtless male dancers (borrowed from Twain's Vegas show), the "Heartfirst" singer still recaptured the magic.

In further tribute, Ballerini showed up on the red carpet in the shimmering white gown that Twain memorably donned for the 1999 Grammys, loaned from the Grammy Museum.

"She asked if she could wear it tonight," Twain explained, "and I'm like, yes, please bring it back to life! It was so gorgeous, and this makes it more epic, and it brings back wonderful memories."

At first glance, Lavigne might have seemed an out-of-the-box artist to honor Twain, but the two Canada natives have lengthy ties: When Lavigne was just 14 years old, she won a radio contest that put her onstage singing with Twain in an Ottawa arena.

Describing herself as a "huge fan," Lavigne, 37, told PEOPLE on the red carpet that she'd memorized Twain's first two multi-platinum albums by then. "She was so beautiful and so nice and it was a really magical moment for me just walking up on stage," Lavigne recalled, "and I was like, oh, I really hope I get to do this one day, and then two or three years later, I sold out the same arena on my first album."

The two women have since reconnected over the years — Lavigne recalled recently singing along side-stage as Twain performed at a Canadian music festival — and during the awards show, she made "No One Needs to Know" seem like a natural fit for her vocal style.

Twain was obviously bowled over. "Avril, you're just plain ol' kick-ass!" she declared at the start of a 13-minute acceptance speech that included reflections on the challenges of songwriting, tributes to her songwriting heroes (Dolly Parton, Loretta Lynn, Kris Kristofferson), advice to new songwriters, reminiscences of her childhood songwriting and her first Ryman appearance as a relative unknown in 1993, and even a sung snippet of Chris Stapleton's "Whiskey and You." (A hearty "good luck" to the television editors on this one.)

"Tonight feels a lot like a miracle, to be honest," Twain effused, adding with complete self-awareness, "… and I do know I talk too much."

Lambert, 38, received a coveted Triple Crown Award, given to the rare few who have taken home ACM new artist of the year, male or female artist of the year and entertainer of the year. Even with a grand total of 37 ACM awards already on her mantel, Lambert was fully savoring the moment.

"It means the world, honestly," she told PEOPLE on the red carpet. "I went to my first ACMs in 2005, I won new female in 2007, it's 2022 and I just won entertainer [in March]. It's just been such an amazing, long road, and that's all I've ever wanted … This is just affirmation that I'm on the right path still. And I'm like, here we go. What's the next 20 years gonna hold?"

"It makes me want to work harder," she added, then corrected herself: "Smarter, not harder! I've worked hard enough. I want to work smarter!"

Coming off their second Bandwagon tour with Lambert, Little Big Town was a natural to be tapped to pay homage to their friend and colleague. The quartet surveyed Lambert's catalogue and they themselves chose the challenge of delivering "House," no doubt her most timeless classic.

"We could have picked a million things," Karen Fairchild, 52, told PEOPLE before the show, "but that song won ACM song of the decade. We've heard her sing it on the road a bunch, but as we got ready for this, we listened back to the recording, and it's not just the magic of the way the song was written — which literally is magic — but her delivery and storytelling that's so beautiful and direct."

Turning it into a Little Big Town version, said Fairchild, was "fun work."

After Brooks & Dunn pulled Lambert out of the audience of their Nashville concert in June to sing two songs with them, the duo returned the favor on Wednesday night with a blazing performance of "Kerosene." Kix Brooks himself took harmonica duties on the trademark solo.

In their introduction, the lavishly awarded duo made light of Lambert's rarefied ACM stature.

"It did kind of hurt our feelings," Brooks drolly noted, "when you jumped us back in 2018 by becoming the most awarded act in ACM history."

Ronnie Dunn added: "The only thing we've got to fall back on is we've got the duo thing wrapped up."

More memorable performances arrived throughout the night.

Paying tribute to his pal Chris Stapleton, who received the ACM Spirit Award, Vince Gill offered perhaps the rarest treat of the evening: the first song the two men wrote together, a bittersweet ballad titled "You Don't Want to Love a Man Like Me" that still sits on a shelf.

"You've never heard it, and the truth is, neither one of us know it very good," Gill, 65, jested in his introduction, "so no matter what I do, we're good."

In his acceptance remarks, the 44-year-old Stapleton, a country blues master, paid tribute to his famously high-tenored friend: "I wanted to be Vince when I came to town. So I tried to sing like him, and I can't do it. Eventually what came out turned out to be me."

HARDY and Ernest honored their friend Morgan Wallen with a medley of his hits — "Sand in My Boots," "Wasted on You" and "More Than My Hometown" — before Eric Church appeared as a surprise presenter for Wallen's ACM Milestone Award.

After Wallen's well-documented series of career-compromising incidents in 2020 and 2021, Church seemed intent on lending his voice to his friend's redemption.

"It has been one of the honors of my life [and] my career to get to know Morgan the past couple of years," Church, 45, said. "I've seen him go through some things. I've seen him mature as an artist. I've seen him mature as a man. And I can tell you this, we're very lucky to have him in country music."

Church also said awards-show planners had asked him "to tell a couple stories" about Wallen, and he noted — to much laughter — that "I spent the last three weeks, and I can't [come up with] one story that I can actually tell you."

In turn, Wallen, 29, made light of his wayward ways in his acceptance remarks, which included his gratitude to God.

"Me and God," he said, "we've had some interesting do-si-dos, I guess you could say."

The audience responded with knowing laughter.

"That definitely wasn't in my speech originally," Wallen interjected, adding, "but I really am grateful for the opportunities that have been given to me."

Wallen traded duties to honor his friend HARDY as ACM songwriter of the year, offering a subdued and spellbinding reading of the title cut from HARDY's 2020 debut album A Rock.

"If you are an aspiring songwriter," HARDY, 31, said as he accepted his award, "I want to tell you, never quit." He went on to recount how, as an unknown singer-songwriter working for tips, he once pulled a napkin out of his tip jar. On it, someone had written the word "quit."

"And tonight that 'quit' napkin will be sitting right beside this award," he exulted.

Reminding the audience of how fresh a timeless song can sound, Wynonna Judd honored prolific songwriter Sonny Throckmorton with a performance of one of his compositions, The Judds' second No. 1, "Why Not Me."

Like Twain, Throckmorton received a Poet's Award, but he kept his remarks under a minute.

"Wow," the 81-year-old songwriter, obviously overwhelmed, said. "I think I'm a poet with nothing to say."

Trace Adkins' rich baritone brought new vibrance to Hank Williams Jr.'s rebel anthem, "A Country Boy Can Survive." A fan favorite, Adkins has also taken on a new role as a starring actor in Monarch, Fox's upcoming blockbuster series that host Pearce, 32, described as "Empire Meets Nashville" in her introduction.

Contemporary songs also took center stage for much of the evening. Among them: Dierks Bentley performed new single, "Gold" in tribute to the late ASCAP executive, Connie Bradley, who received the ACM Icon Award. Dan + Shay honored former ACM chairman of the board Duane Clark, recipient of the ACM Service Award, with their hit, "Glad You Exist." Lainey Wilson spotlighted the hit Paramount series Yellowstone, recipient of the ACM Film Award; recently added as a cast member, the reigning ACM new female artist performed "Working Overtime," a song from the series.

Before the on-camera show, more awards were handed out to top studio musicians and other industry professionals, as well as to performance venues.

The 160-minute live show will be distilled to two hours for broadcast at 8 p.m. ET/7 p.m. CT Sept. 13 on Fox.