Country music singer Eric Church did something extraordinary for a fan who perished in the Las Vegas massacre, and his wife who survived him during his concert Wednesday at the Grand Ole Opry in Nashville, Tennessee.
Church stopped his show to talk to the audience, and told them he didn't really want to come out and do his concert that night, but he saw something on CNN that forced him to go.
"This past Friday, I played the Harvest music festival in Las Vegas, and I was the headliner, and uhm, I looked out there in that crowd, in that place, it was our last show of the year," he explained to his audience.
"I watched them hold American flags during 'How about You?'" he continued. "I watched them put an American scarf around my neck during 'Springsteen.' They held records up when I played 'Record Year.' They held boots up when I played 'These Boots.'"
"And I was so, moved by it, mainly because I looked at them and went, 'This is my crowd, I've seen this crowd all year.' They're mine," he said.
"And 48 hours later, the place where I stood was carnage," he said, his voice choked with emotion. "Those were my people, those were my fans."
"I didn't want to be here tonight," he confessed. "And I didn't want to play guitar, and I didn't want to walk on this stage. But last night, let me try to get this out, 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."
"And he said, 'What brought you to Vegas?' and she goes, 'We went there to see Eric Church, because he was Sonny's,' her husband who died, 'it was his guy, and we went there to see his guy,'" he explained.
"And then she said, 'We have tickets for the Grand Ol' Opry tomorrow night,'" he added. "And over here, section three, row F, there's a, if you're there, if you're in row F, there are some empty seats, and that's their seats."
"And I'm gonna tell you something," he continued, "the reason I'm here. The reason I'm here tonight is because of Heather Melton, her husband Sonny, who died, and every person that was there. Cuz let me tell you something, I saw that crowd. I saw them with their hands in the air, I saw 'em, I saw 'em with boots in the air, and what I saw, that moment in time that was frozen. There's no amount of bullets that could take away."
"None!" he said, emotionally.
"And that night, something broke in me, on Sunday night when that happened," he added. "And the only way I've ever fixed anything that's been broken in me, is with music."
"So, I wrote a song," he said, and began strumming his guitar.
Here's the video of his touching tribute to Heather and Sonny Melton:
Heather told her story to several news outlets, explaining that her husband Sonny grabbed her hand and was leading them away from the gunfire when he was shot in the back.
WATCH: @savannahguthrie’s full interview with Heather Melton, whose husband died shielding her from bullets during the Las Vegas shooting pic.twitter.com/e3YeivgVOv
— TODAY (@TODAYshow) October 4, 2017
Carlos Garcia
Staff Writer
