Jason Aldean returned to Las Vegas for three shows on Dec. 6, 7 and 8 for his Ride All Night Vegas mini-residency at the 5,200-seat Park Theater in Park MGM.
The mini-residency marked Jason’s first headlining gigs in Vegas since the Route 91 Harvest Festival shooting on Oct. 1, 2017, when a lone gunman opened fire on the crowd from an elevated position while Jason was performing onstage. The gunman’s assault killed 58 people and wounded more than 400.
One day after closing his residency, Jason called in to The Ty Bentili Show to talk with the titular host about the experience. The show’s co-host, Chuck Wicks, attended two of Jason’s shows in Vegas.
“We’ve had these [dates] earmarked on the calendar for a long time,” says Jason “It had been a couple of years, obliviously, since we’ve been out here to play a show. This just kinda seemed like the right time to come back and do a couple shows. It was a little bit smaller venue, so it was a little more intimate for fans. We knew there was gonna be a lot of people here from Route 91—and there was. It was a really cool few days, and I think it was something that was kind of a healing process for a lot of people, something that kinda closed the book for a lot of people, I think. It was really cool to come out here and experience it for the last few days.”
One of the residency’s highlights took place on Dec. 6 when a handful of attendees lifted a man in a wheelchair so he could crowd-surf while Jason played “Any Ol’ Barstool.”
“It’s pretty wild when you see the video,” says Jason. “The thing that a lot of people don’t realize is the song that I was playing [when the shooting began] was ‘Any Ol’ Barstool’ . . . so that was the song we were playing [on Dec. 6]. All of the sudden, this guy’s in a wheelchair, and the crowd just kinda lifts him up . . . you have to see the video. I’ve played what seems like a million shows over the years, and that’ll be one of those things that I never forget was that moment, that night.”
