Autoplay
Show Thumbnails
Show Captions
Jason Aldean performs "I Won't Back Down" on "Saturday Night Live" on Oct. 7, 2017, in New York. Aldean was on stage performing when shots rang out at last year's Route 91 Harvest Festival, killing 58 and injuring more than 500.(Photo: Will Heath, NBC via AP)
Lying on the tour bus floor, Jason Aldean was in a daze. At first, he'd thought the popping sounds were coming from a blown speaker cabinet. But then he was whisked off stage in the middle of his set. Awash in fear and disbelief, he peered around a wall at a television, hoping for some news that could help him make sense of what was happening.
About that time, Jake Owen, who'd performed earlier, hid behind a car with a group of people. Singer Chris Young and SiriusXM host Storme Warren pressed themselves against the floor of a trailer backstage. They could hear the relentless pulsing of a gun spraying bullets from the 32nd floor of the Mandalay Bay Hotel and Casino into a crowd of roughly 22,000 country music fans gathered on the Las Vegas Strip for the Route 91 Harvest Festival.
“The last possible thing I thought could be happening was somebody shooting a gun at us,” Aldean told The Tennessean[3] months later. “Once you figure out what’s going on … what people don’t realize is that we didn’t know where it was coming from. For all we knew he was on the ground backstage walking around mowing people down. It’s the worst thing I’ve ever experienced, hands down.”
Video shows Jason Aldean realizing there was a barrage of bullets being fired during his concert in Las Vegas. Katherine Van Buren, who was recording the Facebook Live, said strangers took her into their
