What did Tucker Carlson say when he introduced Kid Rock in Gonzales? Here's more from the video clip

Prior to Kid Rock closing out the second night of the opening weekend of the Rock the Country music festival in Gonzales, commentator Tucker Carlson was revealed as the "huge surprise guest" listed on the festival's flyer.

A video clip of the former Fox News host bringing out Kid Rock, who was the co-headliner with Jason Aldean, has surpassed a million views on X (the social media platform formerly named Twitter) just days after the event.

Ascension Parish's Lamar-Dixon Expo Center was the first stop of the tour, which will travel to small towns throughout the South into the summer months.

The Gonzales event included several music acts, including Hank Williams Jr., Big & Rich featuring Gretchen Wilson and Travis Tritt.

Here's a transcript of Carlson's roughly six-minute speech to the crowd, which festival organizers estimated as 25,000 each day (expletives have been abbreviated):

"You may be asking, 'What am I doing here?' And, you know, I don't really know. I wound up here tonight because I was having dinner at my house with Kid Rock a few months ago. I think he likes my house because you can smoke at my house. But he said, you know you should come and open for me on my summer tour.

"I said, 'I'm honored, of course, but I don't play an instrument. Actually, I'm an unemployed talk show host, so what would I do at your show?' And he said, I'm quoting now, 'You will figure it out and you will like it.'

"So that was two months ago. I woke up this morning and I thought 'I've got go to Gonzales, Louisiana and open up for Kid Rock. What am I going to say?' I had no idea until I got here.

"You know what changed my mind? I woke up this morning, and maybe you've had this experience. I went on the Internet and I read all these stories and thought, 'This is the most depressing thing that's happened to me in a long time. This country is f-d up.' That's what I thought. I did think that, which is a sad thing to think when you're in bed.

"And I looked over at my wife and four dogs and thought, 'Whew, I feel depressed.' And then I got here and walked through the crowd and thought, 'No, no it's not.' The country they tell me about on the Internet is f-d up. The country that I experience when I walk through this crowd or when I wake up in my town of 100 people in a rural area is a beautiful country filled with beautiful people.

"I was standing here and I looked out and I see this structure. It's a lighting rig but its got a familiar shape to it. A shape I like. And I said, 'I want to go see the cross, so I walked out to the cross and as I'm walking out this chick gets right in my face. She's got two nose rings, a cross necklace, and a Trump bracelet, and she looks me right in the face and she goes, 'Ahhhh!' And she said, 'I love you.' And I said, 'I love you too.' And I meant it. And I thought, that's the America that I know. Little weird. Slightly crazy. Full of love. And beautiful.

"And that describes the man I'm here to introduce. Yes, it does. If you can take one person out of this nation of 350 million people and present them to the rest of the world and say what's a real American look like, I would say that American would be both disobedient but decent. That American would both give you the finger and burst out laughing at the same time. That's right.

"These two men have a lot in common. I have the feeling that your wish will be granted. But enough of me talking, it's time to celebrate.

"Now I know many of you are not from Gonzales, which has - I checked - a population of 12,000. There are more than twice that number here, so you came long distances and you spent quite a bit of your money to get here. But it was worth it. Because can you put a price on living free in the last free country?

So let me tell you, my fellow Americans, what we've got. All gathered here tonight, a free people, united by our love of country and under God. And in the name of that country and that God, we're here to celebrate a party that will not stop. And so, as I know you can, please be as noisy and disobedient as possible for Kid f-ing Rock."

Gonzales Weekly Citizen and Donaldsonville Chief, part of the USA Today Network of Louisiana, cover Ascension Parish and the greater Baton Rouge area. Follow at facebook.com/WeeklyCitizen and facebook.com/DonaldsonvilleChief.