There’s a deep cut on Garth Brooks’ 1995 Fresh Horses album that I’ve always loved. It’s called “The Old Stuff,” and he wrote it with Bryan Kennedy and Dan Roberts.
It’s about, as you can imagine, what it was like to play in the early days. Back when the old stuff was new. When, he says, it was: Seven pickers and all our gear in a rental van, playin’ music, never sleepin’, and workin’ on a neon tan/We played The Barn down in Sanford, Florida, for Bev Roberts out in Camden Park, we plugged it in up east at Bull Run and the place went dark. (And, oh, the stories he could tell if it weren’t for the code of the road.)
And now, he’s headed back to The Barn in Sanford.
Brooks just announced announced that that would be the next stop — the fourth one — on his Dive Bar tour. He’ll be there on Oct. 16.
In his Garth Brooks: The Anthology: Part II, he wrote about what those rookie days were really like on the road. The good, bad and ugly. “I just love getting in a van with a bunch of stinky guys, laugh your ass off, go to the club, eat shitty food that’s been there for three days, the bologna has a rainbow on it,” Brooks had said. “And it’s the greatest thing.
“And thus it begins. We start with a barn in Sanford Florida. We become a band.”
Brooks made the announcement during his Facebook Live show this week. “Pound for pound, minute for minute, the dive bars are the most exciting gig I’ve ever got to play,” Brooks said. “It’s total chaos from the second you go on to the second you go off.”
A LOT to reveal on #StudioG tonight! Kicking off with The Garth Brooks Biography trailer AND ending with where the #DiveBarTour is going next! From A to E!!!!! love, g
Watch https://t.co/8Djv0RjgLQ pic.twitter.com/VKHZVJCKW2
— Garth Brooks (@garthbrooks) October 1, 2019
