Some of the best harmonies in pop and country music joined forces on Thursday night (May 8) when Backstreet Boys hit the ACM Awards stage to close the 2025 show alongside Rascal Flatts.
The eight men teamed up for four songs, starting with 2006’s “What Hurts the Most” — which the two groups just re-recorded for Rascal Flatts’ June 6 album Life Is a Highway: Refueled Duets. Next up was Rascal Flatts’ “I Dare You,” which is the lead single from the upcoming duets album (but is recorded with Jonas Brothers for the project).
They pivoted to BSB’s catalog for “Larger Than Life,” from the boy band’s 1999 album Millennium — which they’ll perform in full at their Las Vegas Sphere residency kicking off in July. Finally, they wrapped up the medley with the duets album’s namesake song, Rascal Flatt’s 2006 cover of “Life Is a Highway”; on the duets album, they’re joined by Halestrom frontwoman Lzzy Hale for the re-recording.
The men traded vocals on all the songs, with a series of lasers raining over them throughout the upbeat performance. They returned to the stage to keep “Life Is a Highway” going into the show credits, leading a fan sing-along on the song first released by singer/songwriter Tom Cochrane in 1991.
Ahead of Thursday’s performance at the Ford Center at The Star in Frisco, Texas, Rascal Flatts guitarist/vocalist Joe Don Rooney talked to Billboard about Backstreet Boys’ famous vocals. “They’re just such great singers and their melodies are so good,” he said. “They know how to stack them. It’s like a wall of vocals. It’s really, really cool and really an amazing, powerful sound.”
Rascal Flatts were nominated for group of the year at the 2025 ACM Awards; Old Dominion ended up taking home the award.
