The COVID pandemic has produced some unlikely heroes, and among them, apparently, is Kid Rock, the kinda-legendary Detroit rock-rapper who is now refusing to play at venues in the grip of COVIDmania:

Just days after announcing his upcoming "Bad Reputation" tour, the artist took to his official Facebook account this week to reveal he won't be performing at venues that require COVID-19 masks or vaccination.

"There's been a lot of talk about vaccine mandates and venues. People saying, ‘I'm not going to that venue because of the vaccine mandate' and this, that and the other. Trust me, we've done all our research on this and the consensus says that all this is going to be done, if there are any at these venues, I'm not aware of any, but if there are any, they're going to be gone by the time we get to your city. If they're not, trust me, you don't have to worry. You'll be getting your money back because I won't be showing up either," Kid Rock said.

"...We actually scratched Buffalo, New York off the list because of that and Toronto, Canada and several other cities we were looking at."

I mean, honestly...that does deserve some applause.

Like, look: Kid Rock's whole shtick for the past couple decades has been as a shock-rocking, swearing, filthy-cursing sort of rebel guy. It's not really the case that he's surprising anyone with this sort of thing, which also means it's not likely to change many hearts and minds.

Still. It's appreciated. We need all the help we can get on this stuff, especially from high-profile celebrities. And I bet Kid Rock is personally foregoing a six-figure payday for every show he cancels, so it's no small sacrifice.

Thanks for standing up for a little bit of sanity, Kid Rock!