The events from last Sunday night in Las Vegas have left deep scars in many in the country music family. Eric Church performed a week ago last night on the same stage at Route 91. Just days later Church performed at the Grand Ole Opry in Nashville where he spoke, very emotionally, about how he felt that Friday night and then how he felt on Sunday night as news spread of the tragedy that befell the festival on it’s closing night.
Church told the crowd how happy he was walking through the crowd shaking hands and thanking his fans last Friday night only to see the same areas he stood get turned into carnage just 48 hours later.
He said that he felt in his heart it was over for him and that there was no way to continue after this. That is until someone sent him a video of an interview Anderson Cooper did on CNN with a woman named Heather Melton. Melton told Cooper that she and her husband, Sonny, were celebrating their anniversary at the festival and when the shooting began Sonny grabbed her and she felt him get shot in the back. “He saved my life and lost his,” Melton said.
“Last night somebody sent me a video of a lady named Heather Melton and she was talking to Anderson Cooper on CNN and she had on our Church Choir Tour shirt,” Church said.
Melton told Anderson Cooper that they were at the festival to see Eric Church and a few days later Church found out the couple had tickets to his show at the Opry. Church pointed to the seats, that remained empty, during his performance.
“The reason I’m here, the reason I’m here tonight, is because of Heather Melton and her husband, Sonny, who died, and every person that was there,” Church told the crowd
“Something broke in me that night and the only way I’ve ever fixed anything that’s been broken in me is with music,” he said. “So I wrote a song.”
Here is that song “Why Not Me”. If you want to help the victims of the Las Vegas shooting our friends at SiriusXM have all the information you need here!
I’ll never know why the wicked gets to prey on the best of us
Darkness descended the desert. And a bad actor started his play, why you from Tennessee did life capture? And me with Tennessee get away?”- Erich Church “Why Not Me
https://youtu.be/fwDZ8uhqJg0
Cover photo by Dale Sinclair take at Canadian Tire Centre in March 2017
