Country music fans gathered to share stories, pray, party and to pick up right where they left off in Aldean’s set after surviving the deadliest mass shooting in U. S. history at the Route 91…
Saturday was much more than just another concert night in Southern California for the fans that turned out for the final evening of country singer Jason Aldean’s High Noon Neon Tour at FivePoint Amphitheatre in Irvine.
For some, this was their first show or the first time returning to an Aldean concert since the Route 91 Harvest Festival in Las Vegas, where on Oct. 1 last year a gunman shot into the crowd of about 22,000 people who had just finished singing along to Aldean’s “Any Ol’ Barstool.” In the end, 58 people lost their lives and hundreds more were injured, making it the deadliest mass shooting in modern U. S. history.
Multiple groups gathered at Aldean’s shows in Southern California, which included stops at Mattress Firm Ampitheater in Chula Vista and Glen Helen Amphitheater in Devore earlier in September. A large group of more than 500 survivors, who either knew each other from the chaos in Las Vegas or later via a private Facebook page, met up early in the parking lot at FivePoint Amphitheatre to “get back on the saddle” and to pray before the show. Route 91 survivors and Seal Beach residents Lisa Wehring and Allen Snyder handed out neon bracelets to the other survivors that read “Finishing the set” and even Aldean sported one on stage during his headlining turn.
With the one-year anniversary of the concert being Monday, Oct. 1, a few survivors shared their harrowing stories.
Patrick Murphy of Burbank spent that weekend at home FaceTiming with his then fiancée, Genae, who was at Route 91 with her childhood friend Betsy Edwards of Acton. The couple said good night before Aldean took the stage on the final evening of the three-day festival and Murphy went to sleep.
He said he awoke not long after to a panicked call from Genae, who had become separated from Edwards in the rush to escape the gunfire.
“It sounded like a war zone, ” Murphy said, his eyes filling with tears as he recalled the moment. “That’s not something you forget. We live with this everyday.”
As Murphy was on the phone trying to comfort his fiancée, Edwards was calling her daughter, Jessie, at home.
“I picked up the phone and she just said ‘I just wanna say goodbye, I’m not going to live and I love you,’” Jessie Edwards recalled.
Somehow both Edwards and Murphy were able to help navigate Betsy and Geane until they were reunited at a nearby gas station.
Jessie Edwards recapping the moment brought her mother to tears. She still has her moments and she’ll cry for seemingly no reason, she said. She’s better now, but still wonders sometimes how she and Genae survived when so many around them were either killed or wounded.
“There’s no other reason than by the grace of God,” she said. “I’m still waiting to find out why he saved me.”
Despite the traumatic experience in Vegas, the two women still attend concerts.
“Genae said to me, ‘I don’t think I’ll go to a concert ever again’ and I said ‘No! This is what we do, let’s not let him do that to us,’” Edwards said. “I love this and I’m not going to let that person take that away.”
Back in December they revisited the festival grounds, where the stage still stood behind a fenced-off gate. They walked the same path they ran to find each other that night and spent time in the healing garden set up nearby to remember the fallen 58.
“That was such a big moment for me,” Edwards said. “We looked at each other then and I said, ‘Did you feel that?’ She said ‘I did.’ I just wasn’t afraid anymore.”
Samantha Palmer, 26, of Yorba Linda, felt the same way. She was trampled and suffered two bruised ribs and later developed pneumonia as a result of those injuries.
Before Route 91 Palmer had won a sweepstakes for passes to the Luke Bryan and Brett Eldredge concert at Glen Helen Amphitheater in Devore, which took place just three weeks after the Las Vegas festival.
“I thought about not going. I mean, I was injured so I could have used that as an excuse not to go,” she said. “But I thought, no, I need to go.”
She was a little nervous, still very sore, but had a great time, she said. When she heard Aldean was returning to Southern California for the first time since Route 91 — he was scheduled to perform three Southern California dates the week following the tragedy, but canceled out of respect for his grieving fans — she immediately purchased a ticket.
“It was exciting when Jason started the ‘Finish the Set’ thing… I’m glad he’s doing it,” she said. “We need to finish the concert that was taken away from us. I always knew I had a family in country music, so there was never a doubt in my mind that after what happened we’d all be supported.”
Aldean’s tour was in support of his latest record, “Rearview Town,” which dropped back in April. The jaunt featured openers Dee Jay Silver, Luke Combs, Lauren Alaina, all of whom kept spirits high and the party vibe going Saturday night in Irvine. Aldean played his new singles “You Make It Easy,” “Drowns the Whiskey” and “Girl Like You,” as well as some of his biggest hits, including “Dirt Road Anthem,” “She’s Country,” “Amarillo Sky,” “Night Train” and “Lights Come On.” He kept “Any Ol’ Barstool” at song number five in the set list, exactly where it was just before the shooting began in Las Vegas.
“I know we have a lot of Route 91 family in the house tonight,” Aldean said after finishing the song. “Thank you for being here.”
“We have some business to finish here,” he continued before heading into “When She Says Baby,” the song he had started as gunfire rained down in Las Vegas. “Last time I saw some of you guys we got cut off. Let’s pick this (stuff) back up right where we left off.”
With: Luke Combs, Lauren Alaina and Dee Jay Silver
When: Saturday, Sept. 29
Where: FivePoint Ampitheatre, Irvine
