Garth

Garth Brooks. One of the greatest country musicians and one of my favorite artists happens to perform regularly in Las Vegas at the Encore. Fortunately, we're lucky enough to have some connections that got us tickets. This wasn't Garth as you've seen or heard about him - there's no flying over the audiences, no fireworks, and no 10 man band rockin out like Skynyrd. This was hanging out with Garth at the local honkeytonk while he talks about as much as he plays. No fancy clothes or cowboy hats - just jeans, work boots, a hoodie, and backwards ball cap, and his guitar. Storytellers meets Unplugged meets open mic.

First, let me tell you about how Garth came out of retirement to perform in Vegas. He does a few shows a month on the weekends. Steve Wynn, who owns and operates the Encore and Wynn Las Vegas, brought Garth in to fill the theatre where Las Vegas mainstay Danny Gans was set to perform over the next 10 years before passing away about a year ago. To get Garth, Steve Wynn promised him that he could set the ticket prices (all tickets no matter whether they are front row or back of the mezzanine are the same price and first come first serve), he could set the dates, and he could have full use of one of Steve Wynn's private jets to fly him back and forth between his home in Oklahoma so he could take his kids to school and watch their soccer games. So Garth flys in each night, does his show(s) and flies back home. Pretty nice gig compared to being on the road on tour for months at a time.

So we weren't sure what to expect about the show but once it began it made perfect sense. The best way to describe it would be a musical autobiography. Garth talked about how his music was formed by what surrounded him - his Dad (A Haggard/Jones man), his 5 older brothers (children of the 70's), and his mom (Pearl Bailey). He played a lot of licks from different artists and helped show how they inspired his songs and lyrics and the songs he chose. He also brought his wife, Trisha Yearwood, out who came with him on the trip and they sang a few songs. It was cool because they interacted with the audience, taking requests and asking people why they requested the songs they did. The best was when he spoke to a woman who was on her Bachelorette weekend that requested him to sing the song "River" and she started crying because she was so excited and Garth got pretty choked up to. My favorite part was when he transitioned from Bob Seger's "Night Moves" to "The Thunder Rolls" - pretty awesome and chilling. I also enjoyed his rendition of Ricky Skaggs "If you're gonna cheat on me don't cheat in our hometown" and his shameless (no pun intended), self-depreciating nature and sense of humor, such as admitting that he didn't actually play his guitar during certain songs (i.e., Calling Baton Rouge) when on tour and he just played air guitar. All in all, it was an awesome show that reminded me how much I love live music and the influence music has had on my life