Morgan Wallen has stirred up quite the storm on the internet this past weekend following the cancellation of his Saturday night, June 6, concert in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania.
Marking the second show of the weekend for the “Chasin’ You” singer at Acrisure Stadium, Wallen and his team announced that it was canceled early in the day because of stormy weather in the area. Ultimately, the impending weather took a toll on predominantly Western Pennsylvania, with disappointed fans posting shots of sunny skies around the time the show would have started.
The whole debacle has caused an uproar of opinions from both sides of the internet, with some calling the decision premature and unnecessary, while others have stood up for Wallen and the fact that there was still a very valid risk at hand. Within about an hour of the Steelers’ home stadium, six tornadoes were confirmed in surrounding counties, along with five people injured at a nearby West Virginia NCAA baseball game, just a little over an hour away.
To understand the scope of the lingering debate, just check out the comment section of Wallen’s recent recap photo dump from the June 5 show. There are almost 2000 comments from people calling him out, “too drunk couldn’t make it to the 6th,” and others acting as a voice of reason, “You all do realize that he has management that makes these decisions, right?”
Still, in a rare video post on his stories, Wallen had to set the record straight after the continued backlash poured in from upset fans. He revealed that the morning of the show, his team had been consulting with local officials (which Mayor Corey O’Connor later denied), and he trusted his team’s forewarnings of strong winds: “The truth of the matter is I have a large stage that in those conditions could become fatal to a lot of folks around it. So I did the best I could with the information I had in that moment.”
He continued defending his story, adding, “I’ve been seeing a lot of nonsense about me that is simply not true, and I just want to clear the air. I think my true fans know that that’s not how I operate in general.” For an artist like Wallen, who has a rowdy past combined with his recent controversial on-stage moments like grabbing a phone from a security guard’s hand and flipping his piano over mid-show, this situation certainly didn’t help his lineup of poor press.
Still, Wallen noted, his “true fans” would understand his intentions and the weighted situation at hand, such as his celebrity comedian friends, Theo Von and Matt Rife. Von, who’s actually featured in the opening video skit on the Still The Problem tour, brought up the situation to Rife, who was today’s (June 10) guest on his This Past Weekend podcast.
Rife opened up about his own recent decision to cancel a show because he ended up in the hospital from a lack of sleep, which received a slew of backlash and “death threats” from fans. Von related the story to Wallen’s situation with Rife sympathizing, saying, “he’s not a meteorologist. It’s not up to him.”
In agreement, Von came to the Sneedville natives’ defense, adding, “He’s doing the best that he can, and people just, they won’t cut him a break.” They both noted the magnitude of consequences that would have ensued had Wallen NOT cancelled the show and a tornadoe touched down mid-show with Von joking, “you can’t be on stage you know [singing] ‘guess I’m the problem’ and like people are getting hit by lightning, there’s a twister just throwing people up on stage, people are passing by you in the air.”
Rife then added the very sensible statement, “You can’t please everybody, man.” Keeping up with the jokes Von ended the conversation with, “People are wishing they had sand in their boots because they would have been anchored down better. It’s like cut the guy some damn slack, man, he just wants to do his best.
With now just ten shows left for the remainder of the tour, Wallen will return back to the stage in less than two weeks on June 19 in Chicago, Illinois (with hopefully some clear skies and no road bumps).
Tour Dates:
- June 19 – Chicago, Ill. – Soldier Field w/ Brooks & Dunn, Gavin Adcock, Zach John King
- June 20 – Chicago, Ill. – Soldier Field w/ Ella Langley, Gavin Adcock, Zach John King
- July 17 – Baltimore, Md. – M&T Bank Stadium w/ Brooks & Dunn, Gavin Adcock, Jason Scott & The High Heat
- July 18 – Baltimore, Md. – M&T Bank Stadium w/ Ella Langley, Gavin Adcock, Jason Scott & The High Heat
- July 24 – Ann Arbor, Mich. – Michigan Stadium w/ Thomas Rhett, Hudson Westbrook, Blake Whiten
- July 25 – Ann Arbor, Mich. – Michigan Stadium w/ HARDY, Hudson Westbrook, Blake Whiten
- July 31 – Philadelphia, Penn. – Lincoln Financial Field w/ Brooks & Dunn, Hudson Westbrook, Blake Whiten
- Aug. 1 – Philadelphia, Penn. – Lincoln Financial Field w/ Ella Langley, Hudson Westbrook, Blake Whiten