Originally Posted by stvn1974

I was happy enough with him being retired. I hate how he pretty much ruined country music and it still hasn't recovered. Hope those who are looking forward to it enjoy it though. I am sure the set will be budget priced since he did the same thing with Wal-Mart exclusive sets in the past. He puts out multi-disc sets cheap because each individual disc counts as it's own album and he is trying to pass the The Beatles.

Originally Posted by stvn1974

I was happy enough with him being retired. I hate how he pretty much ruined country music and it still hasn't recovered. Hope those who are looking forward to it enjoy it though. I am sure the set will be budget priced since he did the same thing with Wal-Mart exclusive sets in the past. He puts out multi-disc sets cheap because each individual disc counts as it's own album and he is trying to pass the The Beatles.

Originally Posted by Spiderbite

Can you explain your above statement?

Personally I can't stand Garth Brooks or any country music but I didn't like country music before him. But your statement has me curious.

Originally Posted by Travis McClain

Personally, I'm stoked. I never stood a chance of getting to that Vegas show, so seeing the TV special taped from two of this year's shows will be a nice consolation. Unlike the snippets of all these cover songs played in the live solo show, the box set versions are the full songs, with full instrumentation. (I confess: part of me would have liked to have had solo acoustic versions.)

Originally Posted by Decker

Sure. It was last night.

First of all, you need to appreciate what it's like to get your tickets : You stop by the will call office, but NOOOOOO it's not there. Not even close. You have to walk, literally, a half-mile through the casino, the restaurants, the convention center and past many ballrooms to reach the furthest ballroom where you can get your tickets. Thankfully they have bottled water waiting for you. They need to inspect every person's ID and then slap a hospital band on them before finally handing you the tickets. When you enter the theater at last, your ticket, armband and IDs are again inspected. It's like visiting a busy airport in late 2001. Forget using scalpers to get tickets for this gig!

My seats were AMAZING. They were 8th row, on the right side. It's a small Broadway-style theater; much smaller than the Cirque venues so common here. You can't help but being surprised with the intimacy of the setting -- here's a guy who sold out NFL stadiums and filled Central Park and he's playing right in front of you in a venue more appropriate for regional theater. It's a trip; I could hear women around with giddy laughter. It's surreal. People are yelling things at him and he responds back. A woman calls out "Friends In Low Places" two songs in, to which Garth responds "You want to just rush to the end? At least buy me dinner first". The stage is bare, save for a back barstool and a bottle of water. Garth, visibly much heavier and now balding wears work boots, jeans, a blue Belichick-style hoody and a baseball cap with his G logo on it. Very sparse, very glitz-free.

The first thing to note about the performances is that almost NONE of the songs are full versions. Usually one verse, chorus, bridge, chorus, done. That will bother some, but it does allow him to cover much more material that way. It's just him on stage with his acoustic guitar. He's a pretty solid guitarist, able to make a decent approximation of the backing music with just the guitar (one guitar only, so he's always adjusting and retuning it). On the few songs he can't do, he just sings acapella, which he's also very good at. He tackles the show sort of like a VH1 Storytellers. He talks a lot between songs, giving background stories and intros. He talks a lot in the first half of the show about his influences, but country and pop and gives tribute by doing covers. For me these surprise covers were the highlight of the show so I'll spoilerize in case you don't want to know.
After that, he brings out his wife. I don't know if she'll continue to be at every show, but he acts like she's an expected part of the show for now. They're cute together, very affectionate. They do a staggering version of "In Another's Eyes" together, then Garth steps back and plays guitar while Trisha sings "Walkaway Joe". She has an amazing voice.

Then they turn on the house lights and take questions and requests. The first guy is a bald jackass who tells him he should do a preemptive strike and shave his head. Garth handles that with a lot more class than I would have. People request songs, both obvious (The Dance, Standing Outside The Fire) and the much more obscure (Ireland, Alabama Clay, the song from Frequency). He came back for one encore and played "Friends" and a couple more before closing with a semi-acapella "Shameless".

The show lasted about 105 minutes. Overall it was a VERY cool and a unique experience. Superstars aren't supposed to have shows like that, especially after decade-long exiles. He's so personable and casual that I can't imagine any fan not enjoying it. Still, it's very different than any live Garth performance I've seen on DVD or TV before. I'm sure some will be a little upset about the lack of "energy" in the show, the lack of spectacle and the brevity of most songs. For me, I'm really glad I saw this very-early-in-its-run show, but I think things will be tightened up as it plays on over the years. I'd like to see it again in a year or two to see how its changed. Right now Garth is a little raw and nervous and frankly, that's pretty cool in my book.

And thanks to Garth for being perhaps the ONLY musical headliner performer to not make a string of lame Vegas jokes, cliches or even a passing attempt at "Viva Las Vegas". As a local, I really appreciated that.

Originally Posted by Spiderbite

Can you explain your above statement?

Personally I can't stand Garth Brooks or any country music but I didn't like country music before him. But your statement has me curious.

Originally Posted by Travis McClain

Walmart released their Black Friday ad. It features the CD box set, priced at $24.95, listed as a Walmart exclusive. The ad text reads:



If I read that right, the CBS TV special is included on DVD!

Originally Posted by Decker

That seems unlikely, since the Garth TV show is the final performance, broadcast live from the Wynn.
This must be another filmed show from the residence.

Originally Posted by Decker

I assume one of the two DVDs is a compilation from those shows and the other DVD is the recently-aired GAC TV Special "Blame It All On My Roots".
I got an email for tickets to those Summer shows and didn't even bother to read on. I would have liked to seen one of the final shows live as well.

O/T : There's a channel called GAC? Sounds like an all-choking network

Originally Posted by Travis McClain

The argument for the last 20 years holds that country sold its soul to chase the Almighty Dollar after Garth made a fortune with his arena rock shows, and that everyone has been trying to emulate him instead of performing traditional country music. It's an awfully reductive argument to make, though, and one that requires an almost willful ignorance of the evolution of the genre prior to Garth.

Go back and listen to anything produced with the Nashville Sound and tell me that's "traditional". It was watered down pop and everyone knew it. That was the whole point of the aesthetic; to appeal to city folk who wanted nothing to do with hillbilly music. So they got rid of the banjos and the fiddle became a violin, and everyone bought Nudie suits to show off that they did, in fact, have money because, you know, status begets status.

Then came the Outlaw movement of the early 70s. We consider Waylon & Willie authentic country icons today, but at the time the industry had some resistance to their hippie and rock influenced styles. Waylon's music bears a much closer resemblance to The Rolling Stones (whom he covered a few times over his career) than to Eddy Arnold. So which side of the matter was "real" country?

There's no question that the "Bro-country" dominating the genre right now is devoid of pretty much any artistic merit whatsoever, but it's unfair to lay blame for that at Garth's feet. Despite the antics everyone pictures when they think of Garth (smashing guitars, climbing support beams, etc.), most of his actual music was unquestionably country. The least country song in his discography, "Ain't Goin' Down (Til the Sun Comes Up)", is so steeped in country tropes that you can get chewing tobacco on you just from reading its lyrics.

Besides, Garth's been away from things too long now for it to be all his fault. Post-9/11 country music has been fixated on anthems, whether bombastic in their nationalism (looking at you, Toby Keith), holier-than-thou in their Christianity (where are you going, Carrie Underwood?), or obnoxious for being unapologetic about not apologizing for being unapologetic rednecks (see: everyone). Garth has his fair share of anthems, too, but they were downright poetic relative to the tripe that has dominated the airwaves over the last 12 years.

If anything, Garth's return could possibly herald another paradigm shift away from bro-country and back toward the kind of story songs that used to characterize country music. But even if the rest of mainstream country shrugs him off and says, "Whatever, old man!" it'll be nice to at least have him back.

Originally Posted by stvn1974

I hate how he pretty much ruined country music and it still hasn't recovered.

Originally Posted by VHS?

Sorry. But if not for Garth Brooks, country would not have become as main stream as it did or continue as it has.
While country music had it's culture and community, it wasn't until Brooks came along that the genre became a household listening track. While artists like George Strait, Randy Travis and a few older artists were making albums, they too saw a rise in popularity because of Brooks that otherwise saw weak sales and few live shows.
There would not have been or be many of the artists you see today if not for Garth Brooks. Garth Brooks opened a huge door for country music. Period.

Originally Posted by VHS?

Sorry. But if not for Garth Brooks, country would not have become as main stream as it did or continue as it has.
While country music had it's culture and community, it wasn't until Brooks came along that the genre became a household listening track. While artists like George Strait, Randy Travis and a few older artists were making albums, they too saw a rise in popularity because of Brooks that otherwise saw weak sales and few live shows.
There would not have been or be many of the artists you see today if not for Garth Brooks. Garth Brooks opened a huge door for country music. Period.

There may be those who do not like Brooks and his music but he brought country music from a twangy, hillbilly sound to something people outside of country music could listen to. Some may say it's a sellout but you can say that about groups like Metallica and Green Day for creating music for everyone and not just their community.

I was a big Garth Brooks fan in the late '80s to mid '90s. Have every CD including a special edition McDonald's version that I had to track down by visiting 5 different restaurants to get. Never did get to see him live but from video I have seen it looked like a blast.

Originally Posted by Supermallet

I might be wrong, but I don't think it's the making country popular aspect that's bothersome, it's the idea that Brooks turned country from this "authentic" musical form to a carnival, with depthless songs that do nothing but trumpet empty patriotism. And while Brooks certainly opened the door to those acts, I don't think it's fair to say that he is responsible for them.

Originally Posted by Travis McClain

[*]Zac Brown told a radio station that Luke Bryan's "That's My Kind of Night" "is the worst song I've ever heard" and that he's "ashamed" to even be counted in the same genre as the bro-country tripe that's presently dominating.[/LIST]

Originally Posted by Travis McClain

That's a pretty concise summary of the criticism. I would certainly challenge the veracity of the "depthless songs that do nothing but trumpet empty patriotism" charge, though. There are plenty who are guilty of that, but Garth's one of the very few mainstream country artists to push social message songs. (Can you imagine anyone else, even in today's country, daring to release "We Shall Be Free"?)

Originally Posted by Travis McClain

[*]Zac Brown told a radio station that Luke Bryan's "That's My Kind of Night" "is the worst song I've ever heard" and that he's "ashamed" to even be counted in the same genre as the bro-country tripe that's presently dominating.[/LIST]