Carrie Underwood, as both a country singer and an American Idol winner, knows that the stakes are high and the odds are against her as the opening act for Guns N’ Roses. But as she has been proving this week, she’s willing to gamble — just like Motörhead’s late frontman Lemmy Kilmister. At gigs in Moncton, New Brunswick, and Montreal in the past few days, she’s included a raucous rendition of Kilmister’s calling card, “Ace of Spades,” in her set list.
At the Montreal gig, steam rose from the stage as the song’s iconic opening bass line kicked in, and Underwood came out, banging her head of blonde hair. She even summons some rare grit in her voice as she conjures the spirit of the Bewarted One — “If you like to gamble, I’ll tell you I’m your man/You win some, lose some, it’s all the same to me.” Although she doesn’t win over everyone captured in fan-shot video, a few hands go up pointing at her with religious fervor, especially during the song’s a cappella bridge (“You know I’m born to lose …”) At the end, the audience cheered approvingly. Just like Kilmister: She may be born to lose, but she lives to win.
In his lifetime, Kilmister felt ambivalent about “Ace of Spades” becoming Motörhead’s most recognizable song. “When we wrote it, we were just doing an album,” he told Rolling Stone. “It’s just fucking another song. I thought it was pretty good, but I didn’t think it was that good.” Nevertheless, he embraced its appeal, especially among the musicians who looked up to him. At a 2010 awards show, he joined Slash and Dave Grohl for a typically rambunctious performance of the song during which you can see the admiration the Guns N’ Roses guitarist had for him.
Underwood has been flexing her rock cred as of late. In addition to “Ace of Spades,” her set lists have included Joan Jett’s “Bad Reputation,” the Rolling Stones’ “Wild Horses,” Led Zeppelin’s “Rock and Roll,” and Pat Benatar’s “Hit Me With Your Best Shot” among others. She’s also known to perform several GN’R songs live, including “Welcome to the Jungle” and “November Rain.” On her opening dates for the band, she’s joined Guns N’ Roses during “Sweet Child o’ Mine” and “Paradise City.”
The country vocalist first sang with Axl Rose at the 2022 Stagecoach festival, luring the reclusive singer to a country fest with an impassioned plea. “It was many years in the making,” Underwood told Rolling Stone. “I had asked before if he would ever come sing, or if I could come to him somewhere. We had a couple almost maybes, where it almost maybe would have happened but for various reasons it wasn’t the right time. But [for Stagecoach] I sent him an email and said, ‘We’re so close to you,’ and explained the why and what he meant to me…. So I told him all that…and he came!”
Since then, Underwood and Rose have performed together onstage numerous times. Her next show with GN’R is August 26 at Nashville’s Geodis Park.