{"id":16696,"date":"2019-07-15T22:20:24","date_gmt":"2019-07-16T04:20:24","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.cmt.com\/news\/?p=1808979"},"modified":"2019-07-15T22:20:24","modified_gmt":"2019-07-16T04:20:24","slug":"inside-garth-brooks-first-dive-bar-gig","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/krky\/music-news\/inside-garth-brooks-first-dive-bar-gig\/","title":{"rendered":"Inside Garth Brooks\u2019 First Dive Bar Gig"},"content":{"rendered":"
<\/div>\n

by Alison Bonaguro<\/a><\/span> 39m ago<\/span><\/span> <\/p>\n

The last time<\/a> Garth Brooks<\/a> played Chicago, in 2014, there were roughly 17,500 people there. Tonight (July 15), the crowd was a little smaller, with around 650 fans packed in tight at Joe\u2019s Bar in Chicago. And that\u2019s exactly what Brooks wanted.<\/p>\n

Brooks is no stranger to the small stage. In his early days, he played places like Thumper\u2019s, Willie\u2019s Saloon, the Lazy E, Bamboo Ballroom, Norm\u2019s, Graham\u2019s Central Station, the Tumbleweed, and even a makeshift stage set up for a talent show at Oklahoma State University. But Brooks has always maintained that those small stages were a big deal for him.<\/p>\n

\u201cFor me, there\u2019s no difference between playing for five people or 500,000. None at all. It\u2019s still about getting it down to that one-on-one communication. It\u2019s maybe even a little more<\/em> nerve-racking to play for five people than it is for 500,000,\u201d he\u2019d said in one of his Anthology<\/em> books.<\/p>\n

In the first of a series of seven dive bar shows, Brooks brought most of his band to back him as he dug deep into his catalog of hits. And he made sure Chicago felt his love. \u201cThis town doesn\u2019t do anything normally, right? So I think apeshit is a good thing to do,\u201d Brooks told the zealous crowd. \u201cThere is no set list tonight. You\u2019re gonna pick the set list.\u201d<\/p>\n

And what a set list we picked. He opened the show with \u201cTwo of a Kind, Workin\u2019 on a Full House\u201d from 1991, then headed straight into his brand new big ol\u2019 summer anthem \u201cDive Bar.\u201d With a six-man band backing him, his Takamine guitar, his trademark Wranglers and a vintage Bob Seger \u201cRoll Me Away\u201d shirt, the show was solid country music from start to finish.<\/p>\n

Instead of saving his breakout hit \u201cFriends in Low Places\u201d for his encore, which Brooks usually does during his stadium shows, he got to it \u2014 the ultimate fan singalong \u2014 early in the 90-minute show. Then it was time for the crowd to make some decisions. \u201cThis is something we never get to do in our stadium shows: take requests. Here\u2019s how it\u2019s only gonna work: I can only talk to one of you at a time. Kim? You have a request? \u2019The Red Strokes\u2019? See, this is the thing. You have to tell me why<\/em>,\u201d Brooks told her. \u201cI\u2019ll play you just a little bit. And forgive me, it\u2019s gonna suck.\u201d<\/p>\n

From there, the hits from his long and legendary career just kept coming. \u201cAll-American Kid,\u201d \u201cThat Summer,\u201d \u201cTwo Pina Coladas,\u201d \u201cRodeo,\u201d \u201cAin\u2019t Goin\u2019 Down (\u2019Til the Sun Comes Up), \u201cBeaches of Cheyenne,\u201d \u201cCallin\u2019 Baton Rouge,\u201d \u201cThe Thunder Rolls,\u201d \u201cStanding Outside the Fire\u201d and \u201cShameless.\u201d<\/p>\n

The picture he painted of his early days made it sound like he was bittersweet he\u2019d ever left. \u201cWe\u2019d roll into bars, honky-tonks and dives and we had to play like four sets a night. So we\u2019d play the single eight times a night, and each time, the people acted like it was brand new. It was the sweetest thing,\u201d he said, happily leading up to \u201cMuch Too Young (To Feel This Damn Old).\u201d And then there was the ballad that somehow went over really well. \u201cReal crazy story. We\u2019re playing in the honky-tonks, and everything\u2019s real upbeat, right? There was a song that had this long-ass piano intro that we knew was never gonna go over. And people were glued to it.\u201d That song, of course, was one of his most well-loved ballads, \u201cThe Dance.\u201d<\/p>\n

Brooks gave his band a break then, so he could do some of the covers he mastered before his own songs took off. \u201cLet\u2019s do what we used to do. Why don\u2019t you guys take five minutes,\u201d he told his band. \u201cI want to play you guys what I was playing in the honky-tonks. The greatest voices in country music for me, were Merle Haggard and George Jones. Try to think of being raised on Haggard,\u201d he said as he started in on \u201cMama Tried.\u201d Then, it was time for Jones. \u201cIf you want to know who every singer who moves to Nashville, what they want to sound like, we all want to sound like George Jones.\u201d<\/p>\n

Brooks\u2019 dad was responsible for introducing him to to the sounds of Haggard and Jones, he said, but George Strait was one he discovered all on his own. And Randy Travis. And Keith Whitley. And the Nitty Gritty Dirt Band. It was Brooks\u2019 way of leading into a medley of cover songs he does so well: \u201cAmarillo By Morning,\u201d \u201cI Told You So, \u201cDon\u2019t Close Your Eyes,\u201d and \u201cFishin\u2019 in the Dark.\u201d<\/p>\n

By then end of the night, well past the hour-long set he was supposed to stick to, Brooks made sure the crowd knew that this Dive Bar Tour wasn\u2019t some kind of promotional obligation. He was doing it because he wanted to, and he was loving it just as much as they were.<\/p>\n

\u201cEveryone talks about stadium gigs and how cool they are,\u201d Brooks said, \u201cbut I\u2019ll take the honky-tonks any day.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n
Alison makes her living loving country music. She’s based in Chicago, but she’s always leaving her heart in Nashville.<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

via:: CMT News<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

by Alison Bonaguro 39m ago The last time Garth Brooks played Chicago, in 2014, there were roughly 17,500 people there. Tonight (July 15), the crowd was a little smaller, with around 650 fans packed in tight at Joe\u2019s Bar in Chicago. And that\u2019s exactly what Brooks wanted. Brooks is no stranger to the small stage. […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[55],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-16696","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","6":"category-music-news"},"acf":[],"publishpress_future_action":{"enabled":false,"date":"2026-06-12 13:49:12","action":"change-status","newStatus":"draft","terms":[],"taxonomy":"category","extraData":[]},"publishpress_future_workflow_manual_trigger":{"enabledWorkflows":[]},"distributor_meta":false,"distributor_terms":false,"distributor_media":false,"distributor_original_site_name":"KRKY Ski Country","distributor_original_site_url":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/krky","push-errors":false,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/krky\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16696","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/krky\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/krky\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/krky\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/krky\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=16696"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/krky\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16696\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/krky\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=16696"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/krky\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=16696"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/krky\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=16696"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}