Chase speaks.
Unless you’ve been living under a rock these past 24 hours you’ve inevitably seen the backlash that Chase Rice, Chris Janson, and others have received for holding concerts this past weekend.
And while Chris opted to block a bunch of people, including Maren Morris (and then backtracked), Chase has for the most part received the brunt of the criticism.
He was called out by Kelsea Ballerini, Maren and Mickey Guyton, and even took a shot from Jason Isbell, but has yet to address the situation. Until now.
The post was captioned: “To the fans, love y’all.”
Here’s a condensed transcript:
“I just want to address my show Saturday night… I had a show in East Tennessee, I took a video of the concert, everybody had a blast, but then once I posted the video, a lot of people seeing that online had a big problem with how the show looked, how the show went down. And I understand there’s a lot of varying opinions, a lot of different opinions on COVID-19, how it works with live music crowds and what all that looks like. My biggest thing is y’all… You guys are everything to me, so your safety is a huge, huge priority, so moving forward, I have a show in Ashland, Kentucky on Friday and it’s a drive-in show…. The biggest thing for all of us is the safer we are now, the quicker we get to get to actual normal live shows, which I know we all want. So thank you guys for understanding, please go by the rules, please go by the laws on this Friday show coming up and the shows moving forward.”
And of course, the comments section took exception to the “opinions” part of his statement. Here are just a few of the responses:
– “Opinions” about COVID? The opinions DO NOT matter. The facts do. And the facts are that your little show for your beloved fans may be a death sentence to some of their family members.”
– “There are No different opinions!!!!The science is there. Microbes don’t care who they infect. Saying there are multiple options on the disease is dangerous and completely wrong. Please study the science and us your platform to educate.”
– “Bro, you don’t give a fuck about your fans. That’s clear. Either that, or you have a tenuous grasp of science in general and what a pandemic actually is. Your fans are apart of the “no mask” cult, and are essentially the downfall of America.”
– “Love that you didn’t even apologize….? What you did was a huge slap in the face to every artist who has had to cancel their tours.”
However other fans shared their support for Chase and will continue to attend live concerts so long as they are held.
The venue where Rice performed on Saturday also released a statement detailing all of the extra safety precautions they took to minimize the risk of infection:
“Brushy Mountain complied with all local requirements for the recent concert, and numerous precautions were taken. We drastically reduced our maximum venue capacity of 10,000 to 4,000 maximum capacity (lower than the state’s advisement of 50%) with less than 1,000 (954 tickets sold with 809 tickets scanned) in attendance Saturday night, providing ample space in the outdoor lawn area of 3+ acres for fans to spread out to their own comfort level. All guests and employees were given temperature checks prior to entering the venue and free hand sanitizer was provided to everyone at entry. All vendors and staff were given masks and gloves to wear when interacting with guests, and bandanas were available for purchase on-site. Numerous signs posted across the property informed attendees of recommended social distancing guidelines. We were unable to further enforce the physical distancing recommended on the signage. We are looking into future alternative scenarios that further protect the attendees, artists and their crews and our employees. We are reevaluating the series from the top to bottom — from implementing further safety measures, to adding stanchions, to converting the space to drive-in style concerts, to postponing shows.”
Chase’s show had around 800 fans in attendance.
