Newly Out Greta Van Fleet Singer Josh Kiszka Gets Rainbow Love from Fans on New World Tour

Josh Kiszka, the lead singer for Greta Van Fleet, felt like he had "a target on my back" after coming out earlier this summer. But when the band played Nashville at the start of a tour to support their new album, fans showed up with a rainbow of support, according to Rolling Stone.

"At Nashville's Bridgestone Arena, fans on the floor waved rainbow flags in front of the band," the iconic music magazine detailed. "Before the show, some fans had distributed swatches of multicolored paper throughout the crowd; during the encore of 'Light My Love,' they held them up against their cellphone flashlights on cue to bathe the venue in a rainbow of light."

"It was nearly too much for Kiszka, who broke down in tears at the end of the ballad."

Saying that "the song took on new meaning in that moment," Kiszka told RS that he "explained to the audience that I hope that maybe one day it'll be irrelevant when [I'm singing] 'Hate bound by fear will unwind.'"

"When you say words like that, you realize that you're in the middle of a movement."

As previously reported, Kiszka came out in June after moving to Tennessee, where the Republican-led state legislature has piled anti-LGBTQ+ law after anti-LGBTQ+ law into the books in recent years. As of this past May, the state's legislative attacks had tallied 15 hostile new laws since 2015, many of them targeting transgender people.

Feeling a need to speak up, Kiszka took to Instagram and came out publicly in a post that decried laws that "threaten the freedom of love," declaring that "It's imperative that I speak my truth for not only myself, but in hopes to change hearts, minds, and laws in Tennessee and beyond" and acknowledging to the world at large that "I've been in a loving, same-sex relationship with my partner for the past 8 years."

"Those close to me are well aware, but it's important to me to share publicly," Kiszka's post added.

But after coming out, Kiszka "was really concerned," he told Rolling Stone. "I felt like, 'Well, I'm going to have a target on my back.' You really feel that way, which is unfortunate, but it's true."

But the singer could no longer "stand by and watch it happen any longer," telling RS that "I didn't want kids that are part of the LGBTQIA+ communities to feel like they're victims or that they should be frightened."

"There's so much stigma, still, that is surrounding all of this," Kiszka went on to say. "When you're talking about lawmakers making decisions that basically dictate who or who not someone can love or how or how not someone can dress, it's concerning on not just the level that it threatens the LGBTQIA+ communities, but on a level that it threatens humanity and that it jeopardizes individualism and identity."

Facing his fears was an exercise in courage, but channelling those fears was also a creative inspiration.

"The bottled-up fear of coming out gay led to a new album, 'Starcatcher,' inspired by the idea that self-expression should be encouraged, not stifled, which has topped Billboard's Rock Albums chart and went to No. 8 on Billboard 200," reported local newspaper the Huron Daily Tribune in Kiszka's home state of Michigan.

It was at the opening performance of the tour associated with "Starcatcher" that appreciative fans stage their rainbow-colored light show.

The crowd's moving signal of acceptance and support put Kiszka's fears to rest. "As a performer and as an entertainer, a huge weight was lifted," the rocker told RS. "Because ultimately as an artist or just as a person, we all want to be understood to some degree."