American Country Awards 2010 Best & Worst: Trace Adkins, Nancy O'Dell and more

It's the first ever American Country Awards coming to you live from Las Vegas with Trace Adkins as the host. The show was created by FOX and is entirely voted upon by fans. Zap2it is here to bring you the best and worst moments of this inaugural awards show.

Trace and Nancy are no Brad and Carrie

The opening video sequence introduced host Trace Adkins, who was "enjoying" Las Vegas while his hit "Honky Tonk Badonkadonk" was playing in the background. Huh. Nancy O'Dell is on hand as the co-host and while she looks just smokin' in her little black dress, we miss Carrie Underwood and Brad Paisley singing funny parodies.

This isn't your dad's awards show

Blake Shelton kicked things off with his "Kiss My Country A**" song. This definitely isn't the CMAs. Viva Las Vegas? And barely a moment passes before Easton Corbin performs, followed by Rascal Flatts (the biggest country group of the decade). This show promises more performances per minute than any other awards show and so far, we believe them. Not much filler in sight.

Rascal Flatts have been around how long?

It doesn't seem like Rascal Flatts have been around for 10 years, but we guess they have. Not criticizing, it just doesn't seem like it's been that long. They're great, though -- did you see their "I'll Be Home for Christmas" on the "CMA Country Christmas" special? It was amazing.

Who let the Irish country peasants on stage?

"If I Die Young" is apparently the no. 1 country song in the country right now, but we'll be honest -- it's not our favorite. The Band Perry doesn't quite have the hearty singing the chops that other country groups have. They remind us of T-Swizzle that way.

What happens in Vegas ... apparently has to be included in the show

Why is there a live update during a live show? We're confused. Jeff Dunham is very talented, but that was not funny at all. Move it along, show.

It's "We Didn't Start the Fire" with dancing

Josh Turner's "Why Don't We Just Dance" performance had some adorable dancing-through-the-decades backup dancers to go with his swinging little ditty. Fun song. When he goes through his list of thanks after his performance, we are astounded by the bass in his speaking voice. Wow. He could sub for the bottom part of the Oak Ridge Boys.

Me read good one day

Vegas magician Criss Angel presented a special award to Toby Keith and ... uh ... Criss had a little trouble with the reading-the-teleprompter thing and it sounded like he maybe forgot the name of the guy he was introducing.

Will Reba McEntire ever age?

We don't think Reba ever will. We're pretty sure she'll be 82 and have fiery red hair, alabaster skin and decently toned arms. She's the Madonna of country music.

Um ... what?

Rodney Carrington's little stand-up set was terrible. Not only was it not funny, but he flubbed his joke about his wife wanting "a little Mexican" to explain the way he was dressed.  Instead of implying that his wife wanted Mexican food, he said that his wife "wants a Mexican," like she's just hankering for someone from Mexico. *head smack*

Somewhere, Olivia Newton-John is crying

Steel Magnolia may be a fine country duo, but their "Grease" send-up for their song "Keep On Lovin' You" was awful. The sound was terrible and Meghen Linsey's outfit and hair looked absolutely ridiculous. No, thank you.

Rock that jukebox, Alan Jackson

The Greatest Hits Award went to Alan Jackson and that sounds about right for the last 20 years or so. We're a fan of his and in a night of not-so-hot performances, his medley was a highlight.

Off-the-cuff works for Trace Adkins

Host Trace Adkins has seemed pretty stiff all night, but when he won Music Video of the Year with Blake Shelton, his impromptu thank-you speech because they were running short on time was funny. We were pleasantly surprised.

Rock my world, little country boy

What did you think of Jason Aldean's rock-country duo with Luke Bryan? It was definitely more hardcore than we're used to seeing during a country awards show, but we kinda dug it.

Carrie Underwood cleans house

Color us stunned that Carrie Underwood beat out Taylor Swift for an award the fans vote on. Carrie took home the most hardware of the night with six awards. Well done, lady.

This ain't no typical ending

Host Trace Adkins was the final performance of the night and the producers hilariously put some "credits" over top of his song. The credits read: "The producers would like to thank Trace Adkins for being such a 'cooperative' host. No animals were harmed during the production of tonight's show -- with the possible exception of Trace's meat chaps. Absolutely no trophy girls were harmed either. We actually saw trace's full body scan. Frankly, we were not impressed." Hee.

So what did you think of hte first-ever American Country Awards? We aren't sure we need to watch these again next year, but since everytihng is in reruns right now, they probably did pretty well for FOX. Overall, though, we'll take the CMAs any day.