Jason Aldean played his first concert Friday since his vigilante anthem “Try That in a Small Town” stirred up a national firestorm, soaking up a Cincinnati crowd’s adoration Friday night as he railed against “cancel culture” being responsible for the opposition to his divisive, violence-threatening song and video.
“It’s been a long week. I’ve seen a lot of stuff suggesting I’m this, suggesting I’m that,” Aldean said, as the audience at the Riverbend Music Center booed the opposition he’s faced. “I feel everybody’s entitled to their opinion. You can think something all you want to, it doesn’t mean it’s true. What I am is a proud American… I love our country. I want to see it restored to what it once was before all this bullshit started happening to us. I love my country. I love my family. And I will do anything to protect that,” he declared, as the crowd began chanting “USA! USA!”
He continued, “You guys know how it is this day and age, cancel culture… This day and age, if people don’t like what you say, they try to make sure they can cancel you, which means try to ruin your life. Ruin everything. One thing I saw this week was a bunch of country music fans that can see through a lot of the bullshit. I saw country music fans rally like I’ve never seen before and it was pretty badass, I gotta say. Thank you guys so much.”
Some of the criticism over the song and video have had to do with the long list of things that the lyrics maintains will be subject to swift retributive action, should big city types bring them to a small town — some involving violent crime (carjackings, liquor store holdups), some having to do with hooliganism that would be common even in small towns (“cussing” at cops), some involving exercising legal, First Amendment-protected rights (flag burning, the only reference to protests in the song itself), some bogeymen (would-be government gun confiscators). The music video goes further, though, mostly showing footage of demonstrators — some of it stock footage of Canadian protests — along with brief shots of violent crime. The targets of the song’s vigilante threats seem to be scattershot, so to speak.
But the only example that Aldean offered in his defense of the song at the Cincinnati concert was something that doesn’t come up in either the lyrics or the music video: mass shootings.
“I know a lot of you guys grew up like I did,” Aldean said. “You kind of have the same values, the same principles that I have, which is we want to take our kids to a movie and not worry about some asshole coming in there shooting up the theater. So somebody asked me, ‘Hey man, you think you’re going to play this song tonight?’ The answer was simple. The people have spoken and you guys spoke very, very loudly this week.”
Jason Aldean speech before performing “Try That in a Small Town” in Cincinnati yesterday.
