Country singer Chase Rice is getting excited after sharing the video of the concerts he played in East Tennessee on Saturday night, with images showing large, crowded outdoor crowds swaying shoulder to shoulder with no signs of estrangement. social or masks.
Rice posted a video of her hectic East Tennessee audience, taken from the stage, as part of an Instagram post titled, “We’re Back.” The video clips stayed awake on Sunday on her Instagram story, even as it became the subject of angry voices on social media.
One of them was country hitmaker Kelsea Ballerini, who crashed into Rice in a tweet. “Imagine being selfish enough to risk the health of thousands of people, not to mention the possible domino effect, and playing at a NORMAL country concert right now,” wrote Ballerini.
Another country star, Chris Janson, also used social media to share images of a concert he performed for a sea of fans on Saturday night, although it was difficult to know from the images if any of the members of the audience were equally crowded in Hwy 30 Fest in Filer, Idaho wore masks. At the end of the day on Sunday, he deleted his video from Instagram, along with a tweet that showed the festival crowd.
Although the shooting of crowds stuck in Nashville bars had recently sparked controversy, these are believed to be the first cases in which stars draw crowds that have not distanced themselves from the living room alone for performances in large numbers since the quarantine began. national, or at least the first where the lack of social distance was proudly shared by the stars themselves.
Brian May, vice president of the Brushy Mountain Group, which hosted Rice’s concert at Brushy Mountain State Penitentiary, told Variety on Sunday that “all local requirements for the recent concert were met and numerous precautions were taken.” But he said different protocols were being considered for future shows, up to and including postponements.
Although the audience seems huge in the video Rice posted, and some news reports had an attendance of 4,000, Brushy Mountain said the number was actually well below that.
“We dramatically reduced our maximum venue capacity from 10,000 to 4,000 (less than 50% of the state) with fewer than 1,000 attendees on Saturday night, providing ample space in the outdoor grass area for fans to spread out at your own level comfort, “May said.
All of the guests received free temperature checks before entering and hand sanitizer and were able to purchase tissues on site, he said.
May indicated that the crowd was not eager to voluntarily follow the patterns of social distancing, which will drive the reevaluation.
A Twitter user with the identifier @ AlexFountain23 was at Rice’s concert and defended the show.
“I was there, it was a great concert,” he tweeted. “There was plenty of room for people who wanted social distance. Masks don’t do anything. You can’t live in fear forever … The place was so big that if you wanted it it could sometimes be 50 feet from people. There are so many more things out there that we could get sick of that are worse than COVID. Chase Rice made a great show! “
