Even though I'm not gay, I'm old-Seattle, and this whole thing really makes me miss the Timberline. It would have been a spectacular venue for this show.

"... country [music], a genre that is having an existential crisis as artists on its fringes are conquering the industry."

As Roy Clark (or was it Tacoma's own Buck Owens)? once put it -- when the Eagles showed up, THEY were The Future of country music -- which of course wanted no part of them, denied their Existence, setting Country back at least one generation.

As America goes, so goes Country.
Excellent!

The country music industry will stay like this until it can finally admit that country music is built on black music-country is basically the blues appropriated for white people-and until it admits that its audience has never had any valid reason to fear and resent black culture and black people. It's possible for country to get past all of that...the possibilities have always been there, like on this classic duet https://www.youtube.com/watch?time_continue=20&v=LBloZdTqnZo...maybe country will move on and take its part in the true dance of life.

@3: And, of course, until it can admit that it's just as likely for people in Red states to be LGBTQ as anywhere else, and that there probably have been closeted country legends in the past.