Eric Church was one of the main headliners at the Route 91 Music Festival in Las Vegas, where a gunman opened fire across the large crowd of people, killing 58, and wounding hundreds more. Last night, the singer was onhand at Grand Ole Opry in Nashville where he opened up about his experience at Route 91 and dedicated a brand new song titled “Why Not Me” to one of the shooting victims, a resident of Tennessee named Sonny Melton who was shot and killed while trying to shield his wife from the hail of bullets.
“Those are my people. Those are my fans,” Church said. He then described how he wrote the new song after after watching an interview on CNN with Melton’s wife Heather where she talked about how big of a fan he was of his music. Church was apparently hesitant about even performing at the Opry on Wednesday night, but overcame his trepidation when he learned that the Meltons had bought tickets and were supposed to have been in attendance. He asked for a spotlight to shine down on where they were supposed to have sat, and where only remained two empty chairs.
“The reason I’m here tonight is because of Heather Melton, and her husband Sonny who died, and every person that was there. And I’ll tell you, I saw that crowd. I saw them with their hands in the hair, with boots in the air, and that moment in time was frozen,” Church said, “and there is no amount of bullets that can take that away.”
You can watch Church’s emotional speech and performance in the video above.
