All the gold in California couldn't keep a little Jason Aldean away from a Larry Gatlin & the Gatlin Brothers show in Georgia. I mean that kind of literally. In an interview on CMT.com, he recently told a story about his very first concert experience from when he was about 4 years old and probably the cutest little country fan that night in Macon.

"The first concert I ever went to was Kenny Rogers and the Gatlin Brothers," Aldean said. "I was a big fan of Kenny Rogers, but I was big fan of the song 'All the Gold in California' by the Gatlins. So my mom took me to see them at the Macon Coliseum." (I wonder how much concert tickets cost -- even mediocre ones -- back in the early '80s?)

Anyway, it sounds like Aldean has very fond memories even though shows were different back then and he had no star power to throw around.

"I just remember sitting way up in the nosebleeds on the side, and they look like little ants down there," he said. "But it was the first show I ever went to, and I obviously had a love for music at an early age. I think my parents knew that."

They knew it, but it's not like they could take Aldean to every single country show that came to town.

"As a kid, I didn't get a chance to do a lot of that stuff," he said. "So, I mean, for us to go to a concert like that? That was a big deal."

The family's seats were so far away, Aldean's mom recalls him asking if the performers were really real people.

"My mom said I just kept asking were if they were real because I was probably 4 or 5," he recalled. "I remember hearing them sing and where I was sitting and the view I had, but I was pretty young."

Really, though, hearing one of your favorite country artists singing onstage is the only memory you need. And it must've stayed with him. Memories like that obviously inspired him big time since he's still hard at work at his own career some 30 years later.