Garth Brooks makes a big return to the stage
CHICAGO — "You came back! You came back!" Garth Brooks screamed to the rafters, his fists clenched at his side.
But as loud as Brooks screamed Thursday night, as he opened his comeback tour at Allstate Arena, the crowd screamed back louder.
Brooks, dressed in a black cowboy hat, striped gray shirt and jeans, kept the tempo fast at the start of the show. He began with Man Against the Machine, an aggressive addition to the country singer's catalog that will appear on his next album, expected out on Black Friday. After singing Rodeo and Papa Loved Mama, he noted how much had changed since he last played Chicago, 18 years ago.
"I'm really 107 years old," he said. "I can't sing like this for 11 nights straight."
But if Brooks' voice faltered, the audience — much of which would have been too young to see him when he last toured — had his back. Brooks got visibly choked up as the crowd sang with him on The River, then sang Unanswered Prayers back to him.
"You've heard by now that we've got new music coming out this Christmas," said Brooks, drenched in sweat after the first half-hour. "We'll get to that. We brought a lot of our old stuff with us." And before he sang his new single, People Loving People, he served up plenty of hits, including Two of a Kind (Workin' On a Full House), Ain't Going Down ('Til the Sun Comes Up),The Thunder Rolls and his first one, Much Too Young (To Feel This Damn Old).
Wife Trisha Yearwood joined Brooks about 45 minutes into his set to sing their duet In Another's Eyes. Then Yearwood took her turn in the solo spotlight for a short set that included her hits Wrong Side of Memphis, How Do I Live and She's in Love With the Boy, which she said she sang for an audience the first time when she opened for Brooks in 1991. Brooks returned to the stage to sing harmonies with Yearwood on her new single, PrizeFighter.
Brooks began the second half of his set with More Than a Memory and Callin' Baton Rouge. Then he picked up an acoustic guitar and feigned surprise when the crowd went berserk as he strummed the opening chord of Friends in Low Places, their voices drowning out his when he began to sing.
For The Dance, the final song of the regular set, Brooks extended his hand to the audience and let them sing the final note to him. As the band played a coda to the song, Brooks thanked the audience — those who had seen him when he played the city, those who had never seen him on tour — then sank to his knees as he screamed again in celebration.
After encoring with his Aerosmith cover, Fever, Brooks re-emerged with an acoustic guitar. Yearwood joined him, but before they could sing, Illinois governor Pat Quinn came onstage and gave them a plaque declaring "Garth Brooks and Trisha Yearwood Day." Brooks then requested that Yearwood sing his favorite song of hers — "just for me, not for these people. Would you sing Walkaway Joe?"
The stage had no backdrop, allowing people to sit behind the stage. Garth often sang to them from a walkway at the back of the stage, but a huge video-scrim hung suspended from the rafters gave all sides of the arena a close-up view. The drum kit, encased in rings that made it look like a giant atom, rose and rotated during the encore, as did a pair of keyboard stands.
For fan Chris Weum, the show was his 15th time to attend a Brooks concert.
"I'm not a big concert-goer," says the 40-year-old from Minneapolis, who traveled to see Brooks in New York's Central Park in 1997 and to Kansas City, Mo., in 2007. "But there's something about Garth, the passion in his music. It's a show; it's more than just a concert.
"He relates to people. That's what draws people to him."
The two-hour, 24-song set:
Man Against the Machine
Rodeo
Papa Loved Mama.
The Beaches of Cheyenne
The River
Unanswered Prayers
Two of a Kind (Workin' On a Full House)
Ain't Going Down ('Til the Sun Comes Up)
Much Too Young (To Feel This Damn Old)
That Summer
The Thunder Rolls
People Loving People
In Another's Eyes with Trisha Yearwood
Trisha Yearwood:
American Girl (X's and O's)
Wrong Side of Memphis
How Do I Live
She's in Love With the Boy
PrizeFighter with Garth Brooks
Garth Brooks:
More Than a Memory
Callin' Baton Rouge
Friends in Low Places
The Dance
Encores:
Fever
Walkaway Joe