Artists Feel It’s ‘Crucial’ to Return to Las Vegas After Route 91 Attack
It has been six months since a gunman open fired on a country festival in Las Vegas, killing 58 people and injuring more than 800. For many of the artists who were part of the Route 91 Harvest Festival last October, the 2018 ACM Awards will be the first time they've been back to the city since the massacre occurred.
And they feel it's important to go back.
In a collection of videos shared by the ACMs ahead of the April 15 awards show, Brett Young, High Valley, Lindsay Ell and more open up about going back to Sin City and how country music as a genre came together after being battered.
"It's been a really rough year for country music," Young admits. "I think the reason it's important to bring it back to Vegas and for people to come, is because you can't let something like that stop you."
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Luke Combs, Walker McGuire, Ashley McBryde and Lanco were on the bill at Route 91, but they're not nervous to return. As High Valley's Brad Rempel puts it, the genre is stronger than ever:
"Every single stop on the tour there's at least one person in the autograph line with a Vegas Strong shirt on. This might be their first time coming back to Vegas, but the country community from Vegas has been at tons of country shows, and I don't think it's going to change."
Lanco further that a return to Las Vegas is a chance to "show how strong the country community is and how much we're not going to let someone take this from us."
Combs agrees, saying: "I'm glad that we're going back because I think it shows solidarity that we all are a big family and that we all are there for each other. Michael Ray and Ell reiterate that it's so important that the genre not allow what one man did to ruin something much stronger.
"We're not going to let one person ruin the essence of why we all do what we do," Ell says. "We do this because we love country music and we're going to band together as a country music family because that's what we do in country music."
Adds Ray, "We're not going to let this evil ruin what we all love. It's crucial that we go back."
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