Brad Paisley Recalls The Last Show Before The Quarantine

Brad Paisley has been spending his quarantine time at home near Nashville with his wife Kimberly and their two boys and his parents. He's also been spending lots of time in his home studio creating music and joining fans' Zoom calls all over the country.

Brad talked to us about the last show he performed before he had to head home to Nashville. He said, "I had the unique vantage point that maybe no one else will get to do for a while. That is that on, remember the Wednesday the NBA walked off the court. That was when the dam broke. The NBA player tests positive, they walk off, I remember Mark Cuban looking at his phone realizing, 'Oh, it’s over.'"

He continued, "Live Nation, that same night, within hours, pulled all American tours off the road. But I had a Canadian tour, and I was playing the next night in Saskatchewan, like three hours north of the border, town of 30,000 people, and no cases in the province. Zero. So they didn’t cancel mine. Everyone in American was grounded, and so I flew up there. On the way up there, got word that the next night, which was Alberta, was canceled. So I knew the next night was it. And the week after that was Houston Rodeo which had already canceled. I knew going forward that everything’s canceled. I have one gig to do tonight."

Paisley added, "All the people in that arena knew, this was the last concert they’re going to see for a long time. I knew walking up there this was the last chance I was going to look at an audience, and I played an entire show looking at these people, singing songs like 'Today' and 'Last Time for Everything,' realizing 'Oh my God, I’m not going to see this sight, this crew, this band, this stage, this arena, anything like this for who knows how long.' At the time thinking, for two months I’m not going to see this. Well, that would have been amazing right. It’s going to be a lot longer than that. I said to them, after the third song, 'I think we all know how special it is that we get to do this tonight, and we are going to soak this in tonight.'"