If you’ve been at Country USA all week or in the years prior you know the performances just keep getting better and better as the week carries on. Nashville’s best converge on Oshkosh for the five day long festival with the biggest names in country music. Oh, and don’t forget your beer and cheese!

Lee Ann Womack was the last thing standing between Country USA fans and 2011’s CMT Artist of the Year, Brad Paisley. As the sun set over the heavily populated Ford Festival Park in Oshkosh, Wisconsin, Lee Ann Womack and her band sounded off with some “older” sounding country; a deviation from what Country USA has been hearing for most of the week.

Her country isn’t like “newer” country, which is more of a cross of country and pop. Lee Ann Womack and her band play a more pure version of the genre we know as country, with sounds of the steel guitar, fiddle, and “twangy” acoustic guitar dominate the songs along with Lee Ann’s sweet country voice.

Lee Ann Womack isn’t all pure country though. There is a bit of newer singer/songwriter style mixed in, but the feel still has a strong undercurrent of her country roots.

It seemed like Lee Ann was having issue with her voice or just not feeling well towards the start of the show, but she soldiered on through an 18 song set ending with “I Hope You Dance” and “Ashes By Now”. Not a fan of country, I would have to say I was really impressed by “I Hope You Dance”.

Although she and her band put on a great show I though it was kind of out of place in the lineup of country artists that were invited to perform at Country USA. Opening for Brad Paisley seemed a bit odd as they have very different sounds to their music and I don’t think the crowd was as excited as they could have been for someone similar to Brad Paisley.

Check out some photos of Lee Ann and her band and also ones from Brad Paisley.

Setlist: Ring Burn – Ones A Couple – Never Again – My Shoes Keep Walkin’ – Talk To Me – Walkin’ after Midnight – The Fool – Sa Antonio Rose – Buckaroo – In The Pines – Last Call – Bubbles In My Beer – Little Rock – Night Life – Reason Later – Hate Myself – I Hope You Dance – Ashes By Now