Gee, who would have thought that condoning and encouraging teenage and barely 21-year-old fans to throw beer on each other would descend into unmitigated chaos on a consistent basis?
The culture that has been cultivated around this band is an embarrassment to Texas music, and embarrassment to country music (where they still don’t belong), and a scourge to whatever festival or venue they’re booked at. And no, this isn’t some “purist” or “traditionalist” stance. This is the “Hey, maybe 14-year-old girls getting beaned in the back of the head with beer bottles and injured is not cool” stance. Whatever demographic or cohort that puts me in, go ahead and lump me there. The problem with these Treaty Oak Revival shows has always been that they’re mostly just kids. This is kids music dressed up to be adult college-age music so kids can feel like they’re adulting and being rebellious. And with so many kids in the audience, kids are getting hurt. But now even the band and their families are getting fed up. The band already lost their bass player Andrew Carey (pictured above) who had to tap out in 2025, saying in part, “Touring and rocking a little too hard has done a number on my back, body and mind … The road has taken its toll.”Then on February 20th at a Treaty Oak Revival show at the Ford Center in Evansville, Indiana, while performing the final song of the show (“Leaving Hell”), lead singer Sam Canty who’s been injured numerous times himself by flying cans and bottles was clearly pissed off at all the stuff being thrown at the stage, and walked off early. This prompted Canty’s wife Kelsi to post an extended video scolding Treaty Oak Revival fans, and explaining to them exactly how they’re supposed to be immature, masturbatory degenerates. “I’m probably going to regret this … but I’m going to show how you’re supposed to throw your beer,” she starts, before taking an open water bottle and winging it over her head.“You’re supposed to throw it over your fuc-ing head and drop it on the ground. Is that hard? I’m sorry, is it hard? This is why there’s plastic cups now instead of bottles, because of you guys. They are literally giving it their all performing for you guys, giving you the best concert that you can [get], and y’all are ruining it for them by throwing stuff at them. It’s just not cool, and it’s not nice. Do you want me to throw something at you? ‘Cause I fuc-ing will.”Then Mrs. Revival chides, “Also for the comments on that video saying that they’ve encouraged it, they’ve done this to themselves, shut the f-ck up. They have never once encouraged you throwing sh-t on stage. Never once. They have encouraged you guys to throw your beer over your head, drop your sh-t on the ground.”Yeah, but that’s kind of exactly what they’re doing when they come out on stage, and first thing, start slinging beer onto the crowd. They are absolutely most definitely condoning utter douchebag behavior. The crowd’s just trying to reciprocate by slinging beer on them. And how about instead of telling them how to properly sling their beer, tell them to drink it, and then throw the container in a trash can. You know, like an adult. Think of the minimum wage workers who are forced to clean up after these concerts.
This whole discussion feels like you’re in a scene from Idiocracy. Quite literally people were telling Treaty Oak a year ago this was not going to work, and to nip it in the bud now. What happened? Treaty Oak’s manager was in the Saving Country Music comments section saying he was going to sue the website for slander. By the way, still waiting on the papers to be served. Either independent country and Texas music presents a better alternative to Nashville bullsh-t, or it doesn’t. In the case of Treaty Oak Revival, it’s worse than any of the excesses of mainstream country, save for Gavin Adcock, and even he’s been dialing it back these days. If you go to a Kid Rock concert and started throwing beers at the stage and injuring young girls, you might not make it out of the concert alive. You do tacitly commend Treaty Oak (and their wives) for finally talking about the subject. But they’ve been using this bad boy “degenerate” behavior to market themselves for years now. Their management and booking agents are all culpable. This is an issue they bought on, and initially scoffed off as nothing more than pearl clutching purists with their panties in a bunch. Now their bad will and worse decisions are coming home to roost. All that said, Treaty Oak Revival fans, if you actually made it this far without having to pop next day’s Adderall, chill it out. Treaty Oak Revival ain’t this country fan’s bag, but if you want to keep enjoying this band and want to see them prosper, than listen to Sam Canty’s wife. Stop the douchebag behavior before more people get hurt. – – – – – – – –
Why are the wives making these statements instead of the band themselves? And the claim that the band doesn’t encourage this is preposterous. Have some accountability.
Also – was she insinuating that it’s okay to throw beer cans at each other, just not on stage? She’s delusional if she thinks fans are going to pour a full beer on themselves, wait for it to be empty, and then toss it in the air.
Thanks for covering this, Trig. This story arc is the most predictable thing of all time. I’m a fan of TOR’s music (it has its time and place). But it’s hard to take them seriously when they encourage this behavior and then cry foul.
The band and their management have painted themselves into a corner with this issue. They’ve branded anyone who takes issue with this stuff as a pearl-clutching pussy. And so now, if they take issue with it, their own fans will brand them as pussies. When the wife brought this up, shoe got attacked by the Treaty Oak Revival fans. They blame the band for the behavior, and don’t want anyone to tell them to stop.
I was at a festival last summer that they were playing and thankfully because of reading your article on them, I avoided that stage, because I did not need beer bottles or beer thrown at or around me, so thank you for the warning! Also how on earth did they get labeled as country music? It feels like nowadays that if anyone plays organic instruments then they can be labeled as country.
As CCR’S Cody Canada famously said from the stage at Cain’s Ballroom quit throwing beer, drink it like the old days. This juvenile behavior is insane. Never encourage drunken people to throw anything, anytime. As one can see it conditions the imbecile’s to escalate the behavior. Texas Red Dirt Music new generation unfortunately, at least for the most part, aren’t helping the genre they are embarrassing it.
Don’t mean to be the old guy in the room, but how about we not even drop our bottles behind our heads? Here’s an idea…why don’t we enjoy the MUSIC and the joy of being surrounded by people from all backgrounds that have come together to forget about their problems and the world for a few hours? And while I’m at it …. stop the conversations and stay off your phones. I’m off my soapbox now.
Source: savingcountrymusic.com