Brent Harrington/CBSThe winners of the ACM Awards are supposed to be kept secret until the show, but sneaky Old Dominion figured out that they’d won the Song of the Year trophy just a little bit ahead of time before last night’s ceremony.
It all started on their tour bus, as the band prepared to mask up and head into the Grand Ole Opry House. They knew they would be taking the stage to perform, and they knew that they were nominated at the ceremony, but they weren’t yet sure whether they’d be getting up to give an acceptance speech.
The gears starting turning, though, when the bandmates saw songwriter Josh Osborne on their bus. Josh co-wrote “One Man Band,” which was nominated for Song of the Year, and would also be accepting the trophy as one of its writers.
He tried to play it cool on the bus, saying “I just came over to wish you guys good luck.”
But Old Dominion knew better: They soon figured out that Josh’s presence meant they’d won the award. They shared a private toast on the bus before heading in to watch the ceremony.
While they may have guessed one win ahead of time, Old Dominion at least got one surprise during the show: They also took home the trophy for Group of the Year.
By Carena Liptak
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This video is edited for time. But it took WAY too long to figure out the reason @ohmyjoshosborne was there was because we won @ACMawards #songoftheyear. #acmawards pic.twitter.com/1OylAImCtW
— Old Dominion (@OldDominion) September 17, 2020