Luke Bryan Delights In How Country Upstate New York Is: “No One Looks Depressed, No One Called Their Therapist Today”

Luke Bryan is in love with Upstate New York… well, if you consider Bethel to be “upstate.”

When people think of the state of New York, their mind often goes to the Big Apple. Understandably so, but New York isn’t just made up of the city that’s so nice, they named it twice. There’s much more to the northeast state than meets the eye, and that was on full display when Luke Bryan played a show at the Bethel Woods Center for the Arts, as a part of his Country Song Came On Tour, at the end of May.

The amphitheater is tucked away in the small town of Bethel, NY, which boasts a population of… just under 4,000 people. Interestingly, the venue sits right where the original 1969 Woodstock Music Festival took place, and decades later, is still an epicenter for big acts and artists. Even though the next closest city is almost an hour away. Although, it’s located in the southeastern tip of the state, so whether or not you could consider it “upstate” is pretty debatable. Some say anything above Orange County is upstate… I have no dog in this fight.

But during Bryan’s performance there, he stopped for a moment to give attendees some jokes about how the venue was located in the middle of nowhere. It was all in good fun, and the crowd loved it… and to be honest, Luke probably loved it too. We all know the south Georgia native is right at home out in the country:

“This is like my eighth time (here) I believe, and you know what I always forget? There ain’t s**t here. This is the countriest a** venue that I play. I called all of my country fans back home and I said, ‘We in the damn country.'”

The Bethel Woods Center for the Arts should put “countriest a** venue” on their sign.

To prove his point, Luke Bryan told a story about his son – who is traveling with him on tour – wanting to get some food to eat. Because there’s not much to Bethel, NY, that request was more challenging to fulfill than Luke Bryan expected:

“My son… I’ve got my 14-year-old out on the bus with me. He goes, ‘Daddy, I want some fried chicken.’ I said, ‘Well son, let’s Google some fried chicken.’ There ain’t no f***ing fried chicken within 45 minutes of here. So when you’re 45-minutes from the nearest fried chicken, you’re in a country-a** place. There was no DoorDash. There was not even a nugget. I had to hand make my own ranch sauce. We killed a turkey and fried it. Literally, we out here.”

I guess that’s what the residents of Bethel do?

Though the small town and the location of the venue was mostly roasted throughout the spiel from Bryan, the “Play It Again” singer brought it home by taking a moment to praise the country-ness of the Upstate New York venue… and called back to the fried chicken story:

“Take a deep breath of that country air. No one looks depressed. No one had to call their therapist today. I had to call my therapist because my child was so stressed about not being able to find fried chicken.”

Luke Bryan is right about that country air… there’s nothing quite like it.

The country music star went on to tell a story about going and playing golf prior to the show, and said that no one was out on the golf course and that there “were no tee times” because… they were in the middle of nowhere. He hammered that point down by saying that he had a gas powered golf cart while playing, which is fairly rare as electric rental carts become more and more popular.

All in all, it was a pretty received, impromptu stand-up comedy set from the country music star, as you’ll be able to see in the video below:

@lee_marie288 @Luke Bryan #bethelwoods #lukebryan #howcountryareyou #friedchicken #nodoordash ♬ original sound – Lee_marie288

The post Luke Bryan Delights In How Country Upstate New York Is: “No One Looks Depressed, No One Called Their Therapist Today” first appeared on Whiskey Riff.