He held off on playing it for over 30 minutes. However, Jason Aldean could not wait to talk about the most talked-about song of summer on Saturday night.
"It's been a long month with a lot going on," the brawny Georgia country singer rather cryptically noted near the start of his sold-out concert at Treasure Island Casino Amphitheater near Red Wing. He did not yet mention the song that's sparked so much controversy, though.
"I feel like there are a lot of people here that feel the way I do," he added, but again did not name those feelings.
The song in question is "Try That in a Small Town," and the feelings it invokes are outrage and fear over carjackings, robberies and anti-police protests across America. After listing off those big-city woes — and dropping in a line about "a gun [his] granddaddy gave [him]" — Aldean sings in the refrain, "Try that in a small town / See how far you make it down the road."
Saturday's concert was proof of how far Aldean, 46, is taking the controversy over the tune, which grew even more contentious in July after the release of a music video filmed at a Tennessee courthouse where a Black teenager was lynched in 1927.
T-shirts with the song's title emblazoned on them were everywhere you looked in the crowd of 16,000 sweaty fans, mingling with lots of other large-lettered shirt slogans such as, "Redneck lives matter," and, "[Bleep] your feelings."
When he did get around to singing "Try That in a Small Town" later in the 95-minute performance — too early, actually, since people conspicuously started filing out well before show's end — Aldean offered up a 2½-minute speech to set it up.
"It's crazy: You put a song that just talks about how tired you are of all the [expletive], and everybody freakin' freaks out," he said to cheers. "You guys should know here better than anybody."
