Emilie Heidemann
Morgan Wallen fans walk along Regent Street
Fans of Morgan Wallen on Saturday trek past Sconnie Bar on their way to Camp Randall Stadium to see the country star.
As a bouncer working at Sconnie Bar, located in the shadow of Camp Randall Stadium, Patrick Anderson is used to crowds. Badgers football fans squeeze themselves into the tavern and adjoining parking-lot-turned-beer-garden at 1421 Regent Street before, during and after every Badgers home football game each autumn.
But the scene Saturday night, before the first of two concerts at the stadium featuring country star Morgan Wallen, is a little different.
“It’s been a zoo,” says Patrick Anderson, a bouncer at Sconnie Bar, 1421 Regent St., just before the Saturday concert on June 28, the first of a two-night engagement. “I worked every football game last season. This is more intense than any football game. There’s a bunch of cowgirls and cowboys and a lot less Badgers gear than I am used to. This is definitely a little bit more of a conservative crowd than I am used to. A lot of good people, though.”
The first concert to be held at Camp Randall since 1997 sparked heated discussions online about the controversial Wallen and brought to Madison a crowd and spectacle unlike what residents and nearby businesses normally see even during football season.
Wallen is known for using racial slurs, allegedly violating COVID-19 protocols, as well as being arrested for things like throwing a chair from a rooftop bar in Nashville, Tennessee. The singer, 31, first came to fame as a contestant on The Voice first in 2014.
Just a few hours before Wallen was set to perform his first set of the weekend, streets all around Camp Randall were packed with concertgoers wearing shirts that celebrated tequila, whiskey and freedom. Despite the heat there was also plenty of flannel and cowboy boots. People tailgated and blasted country music that they sang and danced to near the stadium and several blocks away from it.
A young onlooker who identifies as queer says she is not a fan of Morgan Wallen because “he’s racist.”
“My brother said we should have brought a bunch of pride stickers” to place on the back of concertgoers' vehicles, she says.
Katie Mohr, a long-time Madison resident and neighbor to Camp Randall, came with her children and brought some chairs to set up near the stadium and observe the scene and “history.” Mohr also says that residences and a church near where she lives charged fees for parking and quickly sold out spots. Prices Saturday for parking were as high as $30.
Despite Mohr’s observation that “we did not see any Trump fans,” there were a smattering of vendors around Camp Randall selling T-shirts celebrating Trump’s second term in office.
One seller, who preferred to remain anonymous and stood where the stadium faces Regent Street, shouted to concertgoers “Bitch, I’m Donald Trump,” per some text on the T-shirts. One member of the crowd at one point shouted back “Fuck yeah.”
The seller says that he supports how Trump is “strong on immigration” and how he’s “against transgenders in sports.”
The vendors were doing a good business. People seemed to like the shirts and were buying them.
Emilie Heidemann
Vendor sells shirts that read 'Donald Fuckin Trump'
A vendor hawks t-shirts bearing a profane pro-Donald Trump message outside Camp Randall Stadium Saturday before the first of two Morgan Wallen concerts.
Just here for the music
Despite contentious debates on Reddit and other social media platforms pitting blue Madison against red Wallen fans in the days leading up to the concert, concertgoers say they felt welcome in Madison on Saturday.
Two women from St. Louis, Missouri, who didn’t want to be identified, say they don’t consider the location when going to a concert. They just go to see the music.
“We went to the Nitty Gritty, and that was really good,” one of the women says.
Peyton Kingsland, of Poynette, says Wallen’s performance was a long time coming.
“We should have had concerts,” she says. “They bring everyone together. Especially the country. There should be more country music in Madison."
Kingsland says she likes Wallen because his stage presence is “everything for me.”
“He’s actually engaged with his crowd.”
Two more fans, Gina Clasen and Marissa Pruitt, of Sun Prairie, were also in Madison on Saturday to celebrate country music.
“It’s just the fact that there was a local concert at Camp Randall,” Pruitt says. “We like country music.”
“I don’t want to get political,” Pruitt says, when asked why she’s a fan of Wallen.
Wallen and openers Miranda Lambert and Ella Langley are set to perform a second concert on Sunday night.
