Eric Church, Maren Morris, Brothers Osborne Perform Powerful Tribute to Route 91 Harvest Victims

Eric Church, Maren Morris and Brothers Osborne teamed up for an emotional performance of Eric Clapton’s three-time GRAMMY award winning hit “Tears In Heaven” to honor the lives lost after a gunman open fired at the Route Harvest 91 Festival in Las Vegas last year. The touching tribute also served as a way to honor the 22 victims who died last May after a bomb went off outside an Ariana Grande concert in Manchester, England.

“On October 1, all of country music was reminded in the most tragic way the connection we share with our fans and the healing powerful of music will always provide,” Church said, seated on a stool beside Morris and Brothers Osborne.

“A few months earlier on a continent away, the same was true in Manchester, England,” Morris continued. “The painful truth is that in just those two events, 81 music lovers just like us went out to enjoy a night of music and never came back home.”

Morris added that she, Brothers Osborne and Church all previously performed at the country festival in Las Vegas and wanted to come together to honor the memory of “the music loving souls so cruelly taken.”

Brothers Osborne’s TJ Osborne kicked off the first verse of Clapton’s poignant “Tears In Heaven” while John Osborne and Church assisted on acoustic guitar. Donned in a dark blazer with a white rose as a boutonnière, a nod to the Time’s Up movement, he delivered the song’s powerful lyrics in his signature deep voice. Morris then took the song’s second verse before Church’s wavering vocals closed the performance. An emotional tribute from all three singers, TJ previously predicted he’d have a difficult time with the performance.

“I think I’ll be far more emotional than I will be nervous,” he told Sounds Like Nashville and other Nashville press recently. “That’s really my worry, just getting through the performance in that regard. It’s certainly an incredible honor to not only play the GRAMMYs but to do it for that occasion.”

John adds that they feel very fortunate to be able to perform at the GRAMMYs and knowing that they’ll be singing with their two good friends, Morris and Church, will help ease the nerves.

“That’ll take a lot of the focus off of it because there are nerves surrounding it. The most important thing about that moment is honoring the victims and their families above all else,” John explains. “I just hope at the end of the day we can help heal something at least a little bit.”