GARTH BROOKS: Another First – It’s a Stadium Tour!
For weeks, Garth Brooks has been hinting that his Saturday concert at Notre Dame Stadium in Indiana is a “blueprint” for the future…a template for “what’s to come”…the “start of a new chapter.” Today he delivered on all of that, announcing his first-ever stadium tour!
“Excited…scared…nervous – all the good things,” Garth told a Nashville press conference. “We’ll do probably 10 to 12 a year for three years. So they’re going to be spread out. Very individual. Very unique.”
Garth says five cities and dates will be announced and placed on sale before Christmas. Those stops will include Glendale, Arizona (State Farm Stadium in the Phoenix area) and St. Louis, Missouri (The Dome at America’s Center). The entertainer indicated he expects to visit as many as 30 cities starting in 2019.
“You know, I’m scared to death to play stadiums,” he admits. “I was scared to death to get out of the honky-tonks because I thought the arenas were too big…and now stadiums kinda scare you because you’re comfortable in the arenas. You’re always scared to death people are not going to show up, and then – when they do – you’re scared that they did show up. But it’s all the good kind of ‘scared’ and fun.”
Why is someone who’s played such iconic places as New York’s Central Park and who’ll stage the first concert ever at Notre Dame using the word “scared”? “We’ve all been there,” he explains, putting himself in the audience’s seats. “My first two concerts I ever went to, I was second row form the top on both of them. And felt damn lucky to be I the building. So that’s the thing you have to remember – this is a wonderful gift.So give it to ‘em! Give it to ‘em. Let ‘em know that you care. Let ‘em know that you’re singing just to them. Find those people the furthest away and make them feel like they’re front row.”
More details about Garth’s stadium tour (such as additional cities and dates) will be forthcoming…and he’ll bring that approach to each event, just as he will to Notre Dame on Saturday, buoyed by memories of the three-and-a-half year tour he wrapped less than a year ago. “Being away from it so long…then coming back and getting a taste of it – and not just a taste of it, but being lucky enough to kind of pick up right where we left off…and it got even bigger…was a serious temptation to never leave!”
Also announced today: Garth’s Notre Dame concert this weekend will be captured on-camera as a CBS prime-time special! Garth: Live From Notre Dame! will air December 2 (8:00pm ET) – mark your calendar!