Steven Rinella takes the MeatEater show on the road in Middle America
Salena Zito
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HOMESTEAD, Pennsylvania — Conservationist, outdoorsman, podcaster, father, avid hunter, cook, New York Times bestselling author, and master storyteller Steven Rinella is somewhere in the middle of the country as we speak, driving from Colorado to Pennsylvania as part of his MeatEater Live Tour. It’s a show that takes all of the laughs, stories, harrowing adventures, and trivia of his wildly popular podcast to the cities and towns that many of his fans call home.
Rinella launched MeatEater 12 years ago. The first six seasons ran on the Sportsman Channel, the latter six now run on Netflix. It has quickly become a way-of-life trademark that now has a roll call of outdoors hunting-related podcasts outside of his own, the content of which ranges from fishing to game culinary to hunting.
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Rinella told me he is excited to bring the live show on the road for fans of the man credited for changing the perspective in this country of hunting and hunters. He admits, however, that he gets a bit apprehensive before a live show.
“It’s fun, but I still get nervous about it; if you’re doing something live in front of a thousand people, for me, I really need to feel that people are enjoying themselves, and I need to feel that people are getting their money’s worth, so that makes me nervous,” he said.
“But when we do a good show and people laugh a lot and have fun, then it becomes really great and enjoyable.”
Ever the storyteller, Rinella recalls going to see a live music show recently, something he rarely does anymore, but it was a band he really liked, and he was so disappointed at how bad the show was that he left early.
“So, I want to make sure when I walk out on that stage that I never make someone who took the time to come and see the show feel as though they want to leave,” he said, laughing.
Rinella, 49, will be driving with his MeatEater family from Colorado through the center of the country, doing two shows in his home state of Michigan as well as two shows in Pennsylvania, one in here in Pittsburgh at the historic Carnegie Library in Homestead, and one in Philadelphia. When he realized he could take the back road to get from one to the other and see the Gettysburg battlefield along the way, he said he was making that happen.
What makes Rinella and the whole MeatEater family unique is that they don’t dabble into politics; Rinella has found a way to deliver the art of good old-fashioned American storytelling that draws even the skeptic of hunting or someone who has never dived into the outdoors lifestyle into the fold and makes them see, feel, and experience a different worldview.
Rinella is the evangelist of the outdoors who doesn’t preach but instead draws you in in a way that is funny, real, instructive, and entertaining. In short, you could be the kind of person who never considered pan-roasting an elk heart in the wild and find yourself wondering if maybe you could be that person.
Rinella said the last live show they did was to mark the end of the pandemic and was held in Billings, Montana.
“We learned that we beat the alcohol consumption record, and I don’t drink, but we beat the alcohol consumption record previously held by the comedian Rob Schneider. People come there, and they’re expecting to laugh and expecting to be entertained, and I lean it toward more lighthearted and fun,” he said.
The tour began Friday in Denver and then headed east to Kansas City, Davenport, Detroit, Cleveland, Pittsburgh, and Philadelphia. At each stop, there will be pre-event shows where people can have any one of a series of his books signed by him.
Rinella’s perch in this country is remarkable in that despite all of the talk of the rural-urban divide, he doesn’t straddle it. Instead, he educates so topics that tend to be controversial regarding the use of guns or eating meat in his world are where you start to connect people, not divide them.
Rinella said hunting and fishing is about food. The stories that go with that pursuit to feed your family while you are conserving the land are very entertaining.
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“I just hope people laugh and have a good time and perhaps come away maybe thinking differently about a thing or two, feel invigorated about their outdoor lifestyle, and rearticulate to themselves why they love to hunt and fish,” he said.
“But primarily, I just want people to be entertained. I want people to just laugh and have fun with their friends, and hopefully keep laughing a little bit on the drive home and be glad they went.”