Las Vegas journalist, Route 91 survivor issues ‘silver lining’ book

Pyro is a big part of Gray’s life as he covers shows in Las Vegas. So is the popping of balloons, champagne corks, the occasional falling metal sign.

So when Gray heard the pops and crackles on the final night of the 2017 Route 91 Harvest festival, he thought it was the loud sounds of the show, or fans creating their own entertainment.

“I thought, ‘What kind of an a—hole brings fireworks to a concert,” says Gray, a Las Vegas-based journalist who was on assignment for Rolling Stone that night. “At first I didn’t think anything of it. Then people started shrieking.”

A woman 10 or 15 feet from Gray cried out. He realized this was gunfire, barrages coming and going. He was on the east side of the Route 91 site, in a sponsors’ VIP suite. He dropped to the ground, did an “army crawl” to his computer bag and laptop.

He then fled out of the venue’s southeast exit, running from the gunshots. He first ran toward the then-McCarran International Airport, then wheeling back to meet friends at a bar on Decatur Road, who drove him home for a story and a future he could not have imagined.

‘I want to move forward’

“I was supposed to be writing the 10-best-things-I-saw-this-weekend type of column,” says Gray, who had nine of those events listed before the Oct. 1 show. He planned to use one more entry to finish the piece and file that night from Jason Aldean’s event-closing set.

Though he’s not typically a first-person writer or breaking news reporter, Gray immediately wrote a hard-news account of his experiences for Rolling Stone.

“I didn’t really ever read it,” says Gray, who wrote the story in one draft from his couch. “I just sent it, closed my laptop and tried to get some sleep.”

That story and a five-year retrospective led him to Route 91 survivor Mary Jo Von Tillow, whose husband, Kurt, had to have been one of the first to lose their lives during the shooting. Von Tillow embarked on a crusade to form a community of survivors to share their grief, their experiences, telling Gray, “I don’t want to move on, but I do want to move forward.”

Gray partnered with Von Tillow for the book “The Las Vegas Massacre Connections: Finding Strength Through Tragedy After America’s Deadliest Mass Shooting” by Wild Blue Press. To be released Oct. 14 and available on Kindle pre-order now, Gray chronicles a series of stories of Route 91 survivors who have found strength following tragedy.

The author and his book partner found a 9/11 firefighter, a victim’s rights attorney, spouses who survived and refused to cede to grief. The stories are stitched to form a tableau of hope.

The ‘delicate balance’

Gray emphasizes this is not his story. He is a pipeline of sorts, distributing the experiences of others touched by the tragedy.

“There’s a delicate balance, because it’s Mary Jo’s story, even though it’s written by me, she helped out immensely,” Gray says. “This book offers a little bit of a lining — every chapter ends with a silver lining.”

Von Tillow is an avid live-music fan who lived in Southern California at the time and saw Route 91 as a “must” event. Along with losing her husband, Von Tillow’s sister-in-law and niece were both shot, but survived.

Gray is not an external voice, however. Asked if he would have embarked on the project if he were not at the festival that night, he says, “No chance.”

Gray was initially “consumed” by the event for several months. “Now, eight years down the road, I probably think about it once a week.” He has interviewed Aldean since the event, at his series at Park MGM in 2019, and again at the Academy of Country Music Awards show at Allegiant Stadium in 2022. He says the experience was “cathartic.”

‘Terrified the whole time’

As a professional requirement, Gray returned to covering shows and outdoor festivals. His first such event was an outdoor show at Fremont Street Experience in December 2017 (he can’t remember the act). “That made me really uncomfortable,” Gray says. “I wanted to overcome the fear, but I was terrified the whole time.”

The new book is Gray’s way of working through the tragedy in his own life, and showing those who have suffered trauma they can find a community. It’s an ongoing process, as he maintains his own writing career.

“I still can’t deal with fireworks. To this day, I still can’t,” Gray says. “I can look at fireworks just fine. I just can’t hear them. July 4 is a terrible day for me. It takes you back to that night, that place. Helping people get through that is why I wrote this book.”

John Katsilometes’ column runs daily in the A section. Contact him at jkatsilometes@reviewjournal.com. Follow @johnnykats on X, @JohnnyKats1 on Instagram.