We Want Peace. And Our Music. Silence is No Longer an Option.
Last year it was an nightclub in Orlando.
The year before it was a concert hall in Paris.
Sunday it was in a festival venue in Las Vegas.
Try as we might, we cannot will the madness away from our beloved music clubs, venues and festival grounds. We just returned from a four-day festival in Lakeland FL (The Great Outdoors Jam). The idea — the hideous prospect — of something like that occurring when everyone around is immersed in love and joy and music is unfathomable.
Except that it wasn’t unfathomable for those at the Pulse night club in Orlando.
And it wasn’t unfathomable for those at the Bataclan Theatre in Paris.
And you realize, watching the horrendous video filling your news feed, that it wasn’t unfathomable for the 22,000 listening to Jason Aldean at the Route 91 Harvest Festival in Las Vegas.
It wasn’t unfathomable. It was “World War III.”
We were worried about it raining over the course of the weekend. We never worried about it raining bullets — torrents of bullets.
Our community must speak loudly so that all know we want peace — and our music.
Silence is no longer an option.
Or, as our hero Tom Petty so succinctly put it:
Well, I won’t back down
No, I won’t back down
You can stand me up at the gates of hell
But I won’t back downNo, I’ll stand my ground
Won’t be turned around
And I’ll keep this world from draggin’ me down
Gonna stand my ground