Zach Bryan Crowd Hears The National Anthem From a Distance

See what they do next

By kncitom on August 23, 2023

When you hear the National Anthem, do you stand at attention? Do you sing along?

Would you, even if you weren’t in the stadium where it’s being played? 

Longtime KNCI listeners will remember a friend of ours, Joe Maldanado, aka “Garthfan”. He used to do stuff for us, including following Garth Brooks’ caravan from Central Park to Sacramento and going to Ireland to report on his Dublin shows in 1997 (he also ran into Garth in a hotel lobby there and they snapped this pic… although we think the real star of the photo is Joe’s fanny pack)

Joe has always had a knack for being at the right place at the right time.

Anyway, we’re still in touch with Joe as he and his wife Deb continue to raise their 97 children (kidding, they have six). On Monday, he took 3 of them to the Zach Bryan show at Oakland coliseum.

Before the doors opened, Joe and his kids were standing in line outside the building. As you probably know, the Oakland –Alameda County Stadium is just across the parking lot, and the A’s were about to start a game. 

Obviously, nobody standing in line for Zach can see into baseball stadium. But they can hear what’s going on, and it’s the National Anthem. Click below and watch what happened next.

We live in a time where there are people who, for their own reasons, want to keep us agitated and divided. But, when we put down our phones, log off social media and step away from the echo chambers for something that brings us all together in person- like a concert, or a sports event- we demonstrate pretty easily that we still have some very strong threads keeping us all connected. Now, more than ever, it’s important to realize and remember that.

And by the way… of course at the concert Joe met Zach Bryan’s dad at the concert and of course his dad gave Joe an autographed Zach Bryan guitar.

Joe’s always seems to be in the right place at the right time, and we love him for it