While country stars sang on stage at Bridgestone Arena for the 51st CMA Awards, Sturgill Simpson was outside the Nashville arena, busking for a small group of fans — and an online audience of thousands.

Sturgill played songs right in front of the arena entrance, and streamed the performance on Facebook. He set up two signs in front of his guitar case:

“'Struggling’ country singer. Anything helps. (All donations go to the ACLU.) God Bless America.

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“I don’t take requests, but I take questions about anything you want to talk about because fascism sucks.”

As he started strumming his guitar, Simpson exclaimed, "I've finally made it, guys! The big show. They were all out of seats. I couldn't get a ticket."

And actually, he did end up taking requests. After talking about a variety of topics for about 20 minutes, his first fan showed up, and asked for his "Turtles All the Way Down."

Simpson won the Grammy award for Best Country Album earlier this year (which he had sitting in his guitar case on Wednesday), but he's never been nominated for a CMA Award. He's taken shots at the country music establishment in the past and has said that if he's "blackballed" from the industry, "that's perfectly fine with me."

► From last year:Sturgill rips Academy of Country Music, vows to leave Nashvill

Between tunes, Sturgill took questions. Asked what he'd say in a hypothetical CMA acceptance speech, he had a few key points to hit:

“Nobody needs a machine gun, coming from a guy who owns quite a few guns. Gay people should have the right to be happy, and live their life any way they want to, and get married if they want to without fear of getting drug down the road behind a pickup truck. Black people are probably tired of getting shot in the streets and being enslaved by the prison industrial complex. Hegemony and fascism is alive and well in Nashville, Tennessee. Thank you very much.

At the end of his concert, Simpson decided the experiment was a success.

"Well, we made 13 bucks for the ACLU tonight, so it was all worth it."

► More: Sturgill Simpson, John Prine take home top honors at Americana Awards

► More: Watch Sturgill Simpson's Grammys performance and speech