Music puts Eric Church together again.
The country star, who performed at Route 91 Harvest festival two days before a gunman opened fire from above the crowd, returned to the stage Wednesday (Oct. 4) at the Grand Ole Opry House in Nashville.
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Eric tearfully shared the story of victim Sonny Melton, whose wife Heather appeared in a recent CNN interview to talk about her husband’s love of the “Round Here Buzz” singer.
“The reason I’m here tonight is because of Heather Melton, and her husband Sonny who died, and every person that was there,” Eric told the crowd. “And I’ll tell you, I saw that crowd. I saw them with their hands in the hair, with boots in the air, and that moment in time was frozen, and there is no amount of bullets that can take that away.”
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After he acknowledged two empty seats in the crowd reserved for Sonny and Heather, who had purchased tickets to see the singer that night, Eric then performed “Why Not Me,” a song he wrote to fix what’s now “broken in [him]” and inspired by Sonny and the other 57 victims and 527 injured in the tragedy.
Sonny died shielding Heather from bullets.