Elle King Sips Water During First Gig Since Drunken Dolly Parton Tribute

Elle King is back to performing live, getting on a stage in Arizona ... her first time since her "hammered" debacle at the Grand Ole Opry during a night celebrating Dolly Parton's birthday.

TMZ obtained this footage of Elle's show Friday night in Tempe, AZ ... where she was one of the singers playing the Extra Innings Festival.

Fans noticed the country singer kept a bottled water within arms reach all night ... and took several swigs of it during her set.

It's a total 180 from when Elle was last seen at the Opry in Nashville back in late January. She was admittedly drunk as she forgot the words to one of Dolly's tunes -- which wouldn't be the worst thing ever, but she followed that up by making up jibberish lyrics and berating the audience.

After one tune, she barked at the crowd, "I'm not even gonna f***ing lie … y'all bought tickets for this s***, you ain't getting your money back."

Days after that s***show, she abruptly postponed her next scheduled gig in Texas, but never provided any reason. She's been out of the public eye since then.

Elle was shown a ton of grace by Dolly herself, who told Extra ... Elle is a great girl who just had a bit too much to drink. She also urged fans to "forgive that and forget it and move on, 'cause [Elle] felt worse than anyone ever could."

We're told Elle did not make any reference to the Dolly disaster during her show Friday night ... however she did sing songs about boozing -- like "Chain Smokin', Hard Drinkin' Woman" and "Drunk (And I Don't Wanna Go Home)" -- she's a country singer, after all.

That being said, she kept it sober on stage, and by all counts sounded great.