Chase Rice Responds To Backlash Over Crowded No-Mask Concert
Chase Rice — who, if you are like me, you know more from his awkward Bachelor appearance than you know him as a country musician — just held a concert the other day. As many parts of America are returning to some semblance of normal life but also grappling with steeply rising COVID-19 cases, some people are jumping the gun with trying to get back to facets of pre-pandemic life. And Rice held a concert that, while supposedly maintaining social distancing rules and mask-wearing etc., seemed like a whole big cocktail of coronavirus problems. This did not go over well.
Rice quickly came under fire from some of his fellow musicians. Anyone who normally makes their living touring on the road is, of course, hurting during all of this, but some of them had some choice words for Rice and his decision to try and get back to it at this particular moment. For example:
https://twitter.com/KelseaBallerini/status/1277359601361584131?s=20
In response, Rice posted an Instagram video attempting to talk about the controversy. “What’s up y’all, Chase here and I just want to address my show Saturday night,” he began. “For those of you who don’t know, I had a show in East Tennessee, took a video of the concert, everybody had a blast, but then once I posted the video a lot of people seeing that online had a big problem with how the show looked, how the show went down. I understand there’s a lot of varying opinions, a lot of different opinions on COVID-19 and how that works with live music.” For what it’s worth, the venue manager released a statement over the weekend and claimed the show followed safety guidelines, with the venue operating below the state’s 50 percent capacity recommendation, and Rice encouraged his fans to follow the rules from here on out while stating his next show would be a drive-in gig.
So, thank you Chase Rice for grappling with the “different opinions” on COVID-19. This is all certainly an encouraging sign of a musician who clearly gave no shits about what’s obviously going on in the country carrying on with his life and having a great epiphany afterwards. You can watch his whole video below.
At least everybody had a blast!
