Tim McGraw’s Concert Incident Becomes International News

Tim McGraw wasn’t looking for trouble during his Tuesday night (June 24) concert at the White River Amphitheatre in Auburn, Wash., but he wasn’t looking for international publicity, either. He got a little of both, though, after seeing a man apparently hit a female audience member. With no hesitation whatsoever, he immediately called for security and began pulling the man onto the stage. Video of the incident has been picked up by numerous Web sites, with stories surfacing throughout the world, including The Money Times in India. You have to wonder how many fans McGraw has in India, but it shows that it’s news when a celebrity does something out of the ordinary and, some would suggest, heroic.

This wasn’t the first time McGraw has taken security matters into his own hands at a concert. You may recall in 2000 when he and Kenny Chesney were arrested after Chesney’s unauthorized use of a deputy’s horse backstage at the George Strait Country Music Festival in Buffalo, N.Y. McGraw shoved a deputy who was trying to arrest Chesney. Both were later acquitted of all charges. At the time, though, Chesney was on the lower rung of the artists opening Strait’s stadium shows. Suddenly, the national mainstream media couldn’t wait to talk to Chesney. I think he landed his first Tonight Show appearance as a result of his arrest. It’s debatable how much all that publicity had to do with Chesney’s current success, but it’s clear that his star began rising substantially after the show in Buffalo.

Artists and labels spend a lot of money to get their names and faces prominently featured in the media, but things like this result in the kind of publicity you can’t plan and can’t buy.