I will never understand fighting at country concerts. Ever.
I mean, sure. A two-hour show fueled with alcohol and jockeying for position may contribute to a less-than-peaceful environment.
But then again, all of your concert neighbors — whether you’re in the pit or up on some amphitheatre lawn — are the very people you have the most in common with. They are there for the exact same reasons you are: the songs you love, the artist you love, and maybe a few cold beers. On top of that, everyone presumably paid a lot of money to be there.
So what could go wrong? SMH, right?
At Eric Church’s Boston show on Friday (Feb. 1) at the TD Garden, someone on Twitter named RebelRevln shared a video of Church’s own SMH moment when two of his fans started fighting. “Never have I ever seen EC have to stop a show before. Night 1 of Boston & he had to pause These Boots. Drunk lady hit a teenager with her boot, started a ruckus. @ericchurch good job for how you handled it,” the post read, via Whiskey Riff.
Never have I ever seen EC have to stop a show before. Night 1 of Boston & he had to pause These Boots. Drunk lady hit a teenager with her boot, started a ruckus. @ericchurch good job for how you handled it!! pic.twitter.com/uiXmsXiQoM
— rebelrevln (@rupunzl_ssps) February 2, 2019
And while the fight itself isn’t visible in the video, Church’s reaction to it is.
After singing the third verse of “These Boots” — a song that has been an absolute concert essential since it showed up on his 2006 debut album, even though it was never released as a radio single — about riding a bull in Cheyenne, Church stops playing the guitar and stops singing and shakes his head and says, “Hey, hey, hey. No fighting, no fighting, no fighting, I don’t sing if you fight, that’s the way it goes. I don’t sing if you fight.”
When the kerfuffle dies down, Church asks the crowd, “You good?” And immediately followed it up with those three little words. “Quit that shit,” he demanded before resuming the song right at the chorus.
The moral of this story is that concerts are better when country fans are kind to other country fans. More music > anger management.
