UNC students at John Rich concert left 'teary-eyed': 'Couldn't believe we actually followed through'
EXCLUSIVE: CHAPEL HILL, N.C. — Country singer John Rich described his Labor Day concert in Chapel Hill, which he held to honor the UNC students who defended the American flag on campus during the spring semester unrest, as "a huge success."
Rich, of Big & Rich, hosted the concert dubbed "Flagstock" in the college town as a thank-you to a group of patriotic students who stopped the flag from hitting the ground on April 30 as anti-Israel agitators twice attempted to take it down and replace it with a Palestinian flag on Chapel Hill's quad.
"The event was a huge success! As of now, we're beyond 700k views, and people all around America are commenting on social media as to how much they loved Flagstock," Rich said in a statement to Fox News Digital on Tuesday, referencing a live-stream of the event online. "The artists all brought their A-game, and it was a show fit for a stadium!"
Rich put on the concert, which turned into something of a music festival, in honor of a group of students and fraternity members who stopped the American flag from hitting the ground when anti-Israel agitators attempted to replace it with the Palestinian flag during spring semester unrest.
After the show, Rich "met many of the students, and they were blown away with the whole thing," he said. "They couldn't believe we actually followed through on this event, and executed it at such a high level. Some students were even teary-eyed as they spoke with us. The whole thing was very positive, powerful and moving in many ways."
Several Chapel Hill students who spoke to Fox News Digital on Monday reflected on their classmates' spontaneous show of patriotism on April 30 that inspired Flagstock.
"It was a little crazy, for sure. I mean, we were getting stuff thrown at us. There were rocks flying over our heads … balloons full of chicken broth were getting thrown at us, and other stuff was just flying around us," Jason Calderon, a member of UNC's Zeta Beta Tau chapter who held up the flag that day in April, told Fox News Digital. "People are screaming at us. It was definitely a chaotic moment."
The moment was captured by a student photographer and went viral on social media, making headlines across the country. A man named John Noonan, unaffiliated with Chapel Hill, started a GoFundMe for the students who held up the flag with the goal of buying them "a few kegs" for their display of patriotism – and to get a few laughs from his friends – he told reporters on Monday. The fundraiser ended up garnering more than $500,000 in donations.
Calderon said he didn't know what to make of the massive fundraiser at first.
"In the beginning, it's almost like what we did … didn't feel like that monumental of a thing to do. … We were originally there in support of Israel, and then it became this big American, patriotic kind of event, and we were just initially fearful of that it would be taken out of the context that it was originally there for, and it would be used to fit an agenda of some sort," the sophomore said. "And that was the biggest thing that we were trying to avoid."
ANTI-ISRAEL DEMONSTRATORS GATHER AT UNC-CHAPEL HILL CHANCELLOR'S OFFICE, SMEAR RED PAINT ON BUILDING
Then Rich offered to help by hosting a concert in the student's honor. At first, the "Save a Horse Ride a Cowboy" singer was planning on putting on a small show in front of a fraternity house, but plans changed when they raised half a million dollars, according to his manager, Marc Oswald.
Two college Republicans at Chapel Hill, Matthew Trott and Preston Hill, both expressed excitement for the concert, which the local American Legion Post 6 hosted on Monday in honor of the students who held up the flag, with many American Legion and VFW members volunteering their day off to attend the event that drew hundreds of students.
UNC STUDENT WHO DEFENDED AMERICAN FLAG FROM CAMPUS MOB ‘HONORED TO GIVE BACK TO THE NATION’
Trott said that when he first saw the image of his classmates and friends holding up the flag, he felt "shock" and "a bit of pride that they were willing to do that." The junior, who heads Chapel Hill's College Republicans club, added that he feels Chapel Hill is generally respectful of differing perspectives, and he's only been met with resistance on campus a few times "despite being out there every week."
Hill, who was sporting a "Make America Great Again" hat at Flagstock, similarly said "it was crazy and disgraceful seeing the American flag taken down and [replaced] … with another nation's flag."
"I'm really glad that we had people … who were there to put it back up that day. I am very proud to be a Tar Heel."
Not all Chapel Hill students, however, had the same takeaway from the viral moment and not all students were looking forward to Flagstock. Organizers said they handed out around 3,000 tickets to members of the 10 fraternities whose members helped hold up the flag in April. Only several hundred ended up attending the Labor Day event.
Matthew Broderick, a senior and a journalism major, told Fox News Digital that the "vibes on campus have been very split" in the lead-up to Flagstock.
"There's a lot of people who are in huge favor of this. They love this. And then there's a lot of people who think this is a really bad idea," Broderick said. "I mean, I think some fraternities and sororities have been telling the people, 'Hey, don't come to this. We think it's a bad look.' And then some have been like, ‘Hey, please go to this is. It’s a really good look. It's good for our fraternity and our sorority.' … But I don't think there's a consensus about this."
Noonan, the GoFundMe creator for the Chapel Hill students, broke down how some of the funds helped put the show together while giving reporters a tour of the venue on Monday. The stage itself, from Technical Arts Group (TAG) Live, cost $100,000, though TAG also donated a lot of material support for the event.
"We haven't seen kids do what these kids did in a long time," TAG Live Operations Director Jarrod Choury told Fox News Digital, adding that the students' actions on campus "spoke to" TAG Live to be a part of the concert.
The security budget for the event was approximately $80,000, including plainclothes security, 20 Orange County Sheriff's Office staff, fire and EMS personnel. Pints for Patriots chartered more than a dozen 50-passenger buses to transport students to and from campus, according to Noonan.
Dan Cragg, an attorney working for Pints for Patriots, offered about $15,000 to $20,000 worth of pro bono general counsel legal work for the event.
CLICK HERE TO GET THE FOX NEWS APP
'What those kids did was honorable and patriotic," Cragg told Fox News Digital. "And we want to support that. ... And certainly, we want to create an incentive system where sticking their neck out like that – defending the flag – there's a there's a bonus for that. There's a reward for that."
While the show started out small and somewhat quiet, eventually, a large crowd of Chapel Hill students in attendance found their way to the stage as the night wore on and took part in the patriotic messages that singers presented during their sets. The show included performances from Big & Rich, Lee Greenwood, Aaron Lewis and John Ondrasik, a.k.a. Five for Fighting. Roman Rene Ramirez of Sublime also made a surprise appearance.