Fifty-nine country music fans fell victim to the mass shooting on October 1, 2017 when Las Vegas hosted the Route 91 Harvest Festival (via People). The country music event brought 22,000 people to the streets for star-studded performances. During the Jason Aldean set, the shooter, Stephen Paddock, stood in his room on the 32nd floor of Mandalay Bay and opened fire on the crowd. In addition to the 59 people killed, more than 700 others were injured.
A stoic Aldean introduced the evening's moving performance. And when Chris Stapleton took the stage, he unleashed a full range of mournful rage in a performance that Billboard describes as "incendiary." The song's lyrics leave nothing unsaid; Stapleton opens with, "Only a coward would pick up a gun, and shoot up a crowd tryna have fun."
The singer-songwriter rides the waves of rage and sorrow in a message meant for the shooter. "Oh, you're gonna get your turn, Devil gonna watch you burn." The emotion in the performance built as Stapleton's guitar seemingly fueled his fire, and ultimately, ended in a moving climax of vocals, as the backup singers raised their arms. The stadium really felt the immense weight of its emotional impact.
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