Country star Jason Aldean came to the big town Saturday night and said if there was anywhere in the world that understood his song âTry That in a Small Town,â it would be Boston.
âI was laying in bed last night and thinking to myself, you guys would get this better than anybody, right?â Aldean said during his Saturday concert at the Xfinity Center in Mansfield, Massachusetts, just south of Boston.
âBecause I remember a time, I think it was April of 2013, when the Boston Marathon bombings happened. You guys remember this, right?
âWhat I saw when that happened was, not a small town â a big aâ town â come together,â he said as the audience cheered.
âThe whole country, especially Boston, came together to find these two prâ- that did that. Any of you guys that wouldâve found those guys before the cops did, I know you guys from Boston, and you guys wouldâve beat the sâ out of ,â he said.
He said his song is ânot about race. Itâs about people getting their sâ together, acting right. Youâre hearing from the person that made the record. Everybody is trying to tell you what I meant. They donât know what I meant,â he said.
âWhat I meant is exactly what I just told you. We are a country, the greatest one in the world. I know you guys are like me. You want to be able to send your kids to school and not have to worry about something happening while theyâre at school,â he added.
âTo me, thatâs not a racial issue. I donât give a sâ what color you are. If youâre acting out, burning down buildings, costing taxpayers all this money, just for you to go and show that youâre pissed off, to me, I just donât get that. Weâre just never going to see eye to eye about that sâ,â he said.
âI want to thank you guys so much. You guys saw what was trying to happen here the last couple of weeks.
âA lot of people wanted nothing more than for this song to be something that it wasnât, wanted you guys to turn on me and think that I was something that I wasnât,â he said.
âIt makes me very proud, the fact that all you guys can see that and go, âNuh-uh, not this time.â You guys took this song and the video and you guys have made this thing one of the biggest things Iâve ever had in my career. Thank you guys for hearing the song, seeing the video, watching it with an open mind, seeing what it was about,â he said.
In a Pennsylvania stop on his tour, Aldean confronted head-on the allegations that the song promotes lynchings and has racist overtones.
âI donât give a damn what color you are, or who you are,â he told an audience at Hersheypark Stadium in Hershey, Pennsylvania, according to Penn Live, the website of the Patriot-News of Harrisburg.
Aldean also had a request of those following the controversy over the song.
âWhen you guys are reading articles, I ask you not to just read the headline,â he said, according to Penn Live.
âGo all the way through, read, and get the facts straight. Everybody is so quick to cancel everybody. âOh he did this, they did that,â whatever. Just do your homework, read the article and not just the headline.
âGet all of the information before making your opinion.â
This article appeared originally on The Western Journal.
