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Chris Stapleton is taking the stage at the Academy of Country Music Awards with a live debut of his moving tribute to the victims of the Route 91 shooting. The country hitmaker revealed in an interview with PEOPLE that, along with a 16-member choir and a special guest, he’ll perform “‘Watch You Burn,’ which is a song that I wrote with Mike Campbell about the shooting that happened here during the country music festival.”
Stapleton included the song on Starting Over, his album that released in 2020. The 14-song project also includes the title track, Cold, You Should Probable Leave and others. The Route 91 music festival shooting remains the worst mass shooting in the nation’s history, with 60 killed and more than 400 injured in Las Vegas in October 2017, PEOPLE noted. Stapleton sings:
“Only a coward would pick up a gun/ And shoot up a crowd trying to have fun/ Now the Vegas lights, they won't lose their glow/ And the band will play and go on with the show
“And you're gonna get your turn/ Yes, you're gonna get your turn/ Son, you're gonna get your turn/ Devil gonna watch you burn”
Stapleton is among the leading ACM Awards nominees, including for Entertainer of the Year and other major categories. The two-hour “concert event of the year,” hosted at Allegiant Stadium in Las Vegas, is set to livestream commercial-free on Prime Video beginning at 8 p.m. EST on Monday (March 7).