County great Jason Aldean was playing full out as he began to deliver his hit, When She Says Baby, to a crowd of 200,000. Almost as if imitating a snare drum in rapid fire, shots rang out. Rat a tat tat. Tat tat, tat tat.
The headliner and Academy of Country Music’s entertainer of the year was just starting the last song of the last set of the three-day Route 91 Harvest Festival.
The so-called neon-sleepover–an event that took place on a 15-acre lot underneath the stars and in the shadow of the hulking Mandalay Bay Resort & Casino on the Las Vegas strip where, on the final evening, a killer lurked on a high floor–had been a highlight for country crooners and country fans alike.
That happy feeling suddenly turned into a nightmare as Aldean realized those percussive sounds he heard were not keeping his beat on purpose. They were the sounds of some kind of machine gun fire that was deadly and so he instinctively did what everyone there who could was doing: He retreated to seek refuge.
The next sounds coming from that temporary Sin City venue were screaming, yelling and more gunfire. Two more rapid fire rounds. Hundreds of bullets spraying everywhere and claiming lives by the second.
Jake Owen had been on stage to support his fellow artist after performing earlier in the evening and he talked to Nashville’s Bobby Bones about the horrific experience, the deadliest mass shooting in U.S. history.
“We put on a show so people can have fun and forget about some of the day-to-day life things..[we can not] be scared of these cowards that do this…[and] we will prevail. That’s what we do as Americans.”
On Monday, Jason Aldean posted on Instagram under an image of the Nevada city’s skyline with words that read “Pray for Las Vegas”. He spoke for all, noting “it hurts my heart that this would happen to anyone…”
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