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Nate Smith rocked the Moody Center stage when he performed Saturday night (May 3) at the 2025 iHeartCountry Festival presented by Capital One in Austin, Texas.
The award-winning country star cranked up the energy in the venue as he delivered some of the hottest hits from his debut and sophomore records. Smith, the 2024 Academy of Country Music New Male Artist of the Year, performed “Bulletproof,” “Whiskey On You,” “Fix What You Didn’t Break” and “World on Fire” throughout his set on the main stage.
Smith, 39, delivered his self-titled debut record and its deluxe edition in April 2023. He followed up with California Gold, a nod to his home state, in October 2024. Most recently, the Paradise, California-born artist released “Nobody Likes Your Girlfriend,” a collaboration with HARDY that features actor and comedian Kevin James in the music video. Smith admitted in a previous interview with iHeartCountry that it can be “a scary thing” to release new music after a successful debut album. “But, you know, for me, it’s always about the songs. It’s always gonna be about the songs. I think that’s the most important thing. …if the song’s right, you’ve got something.”
Smith told iHeartCountry at that time, in late 2024, that he aimed to write and record music for his third album at the start of the year. He teased at that time, “I don’t wanna rush a lot of things with this one. I really want it to be right. …My whole theme for that one is just gonna be raw, and real, and transparent, and probably more organic-sounding to reflect that message. It’ll probably be more acoustic-driven to reflect that kind of thing.”
Other artists who joined the 2025 iHeartCountry Festival lineup include Brooks & Dunn, Thomas Rhett, Rascal Flatts, Cole Swindell, Sam Hunt, Megan Moroney, Bailey Zimmerman, and special guest Dasha, who performed her viral TikTok anthem, “Austin,” in the Texas city of the same name. Festival goers also caught performances on the free Daytime Village stage before the man show, including Smith, Moroney, Matt Stell, Tucker Wetmore and Dasha in the lineup. iHeartCountry Festival viewers and listeners tuned into the show via Hulu, the Official Streaming Destination, and across 122 iHeartCountry stations nationwide and the free iHeartRadio app. It was all hosted by iHeartRadio’s Bobby Bones.