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Jason Aldean<\/strong><\/a> knows he will be forever linked to the city of Las Vegas<\/a> after a gunman killed 60 people and injured hundreds more while he was performing at the Route 91 Harvest Music Festival on October 1, 2017.<\/p>\n Looking back on the tragedy, he recalled coping with the whirlwind in the weeks that followed.<\/p>\n \u201cI ended up having a moment at my house where I kind of broke down thinking about just all the people that I could have lost, all the people that we did lose as far as fans, but my inner circle of people and my wife was there eight months pregnant with my son and all these things,\u201d Aldean, 48, explained in an appearance on the Monday, September 1, episode of the \u201cArmchair Expert<\/a>\u201d podcast<\/p>\n The days after the shooting included an impromptu trip to New York to appear on Saturday Night Live<\/em><\/a>, then a flight the next morning back to Las Vegas to meet with some of the injured victims recovering in a local hospital.<\/p>\n \u201cI was home for a couple days and I got a call from my manager, Clarence Spalding<\/strong>, and he just goes, \u2018Hey, Lorne Michaels<\/strong> just called and he wants you to play Saturday Night Live<\/em>,\u2019\u201d Aldean recalled. \u201cObviously, Saturday Night Live<\/em> is something I\u2019ve always wanted to play. That\u2019s one of those things as an artist or actor, it\u2019s just an iconic show.\u201d<\/p>\n But that didn\u2019t mean Aldean\u2019s answer was an automatic yes. Explaining that he didn\u2019t want to make his SNL<\/em> debut \u201clike this,\u201d he said that he told the show that he would only do it if he could say and perform what he wanted.<\/p>\n \u201cMe and my publicist sat on the phone in a room in a hotel and wrote out what we were going to say,\u201d he said. \u201cAnd they let me do it. So I called my band, rallied everybody.\u201d<\/p>\n That Saturday night, October 7, Aldean was centerstage for the show\u2019s cold open, where he delivered a message to the victims and their families.<\/p>\n \u201cI want to say to them, we hurt for you and we hurt with you,\u201d he said at the time. \u201cYou can be sure that we\u2019re going to walk through these tough times together every step of the way. Because when America is at its best, our bond, our spirit is unbreakable.\u201d<\/p>\n He then began playing Tom Petty<\/strong>\u2019s \u201cI Won\u2019t Back Down.\u201d Petty died just five days earlier<\/a> of an accidental overdose at age 66.<\/p>\n