Garth is back.  Can you swing a second mortgage?

By R. Keith Rugg, 11-03-09

Garth is back.

Last month, Garth Brooks announced that he was coming out of retirement. (Although he’s played the occasional charity or special event gig since then, 2001 marked his retirement from touring.) When I initially heard the news, I was pleased.  Garth is the biggest country music act that I haven’t caught in a live performance.  So I figured I was going to get another chance at him.

More of the details came out.  He’s going to play exclusively at the Wynn in Las Vegas.  OK, good, I get down to Sin City once in a while.

He’s only going to play weekend shows.  OK, I can probably schedule some time to go to a show on a Friday or Saturday.

And the tickets are going to be $125 per.

You know how in the movies, things will be moving along at a good pace, and then it all comes to a halt, and they have a sound effect of a needle scratching across a record, and then the chirping of crickets?  The stunned-silence kind of thing?  Feel free to insert that right here.

I was kind of ticked off for a while after hearing what kind of cashola they’re expecting people to shell out for these shows.  Part of me was thinking, ‘Country music is the music of the working man and woman, rural Americans who are rich in a lot of things, but money ain’t usually one of ‘em.’ (That’s a rough translation of my train of thought… a more literal transcription might go more like, ‘Dog-daggit, whatta those sobs think, I’m made outta money or something?!’)

But surprise, surprise, from what I hear, those hunnert’n’twennyfi’ dollar tix went like hotcakes the minute they were up for sale.  So that kind of took the wind out of my argument that people couldn’t and wouldn’t pay that kind of money for that kind of music.  (The Wynn website has a big red banner proclaiming ‘Sold Out’ above the Garth Brooks promo, but there is a spot there where you can sign up for e-mail announcements about future performance dates.)

And once I got to thinking about it, I really couldn’t blame Garth.  His setup is something like he plays 16 weekends a year (one show on Friday, two on Saturday, and one on Sunday) for the next five years, and the casino will fly him to and from his home in Okalahoma each week in a private jet.  Nice work if you can get it.  I don’t think many of us would have to think twice about coming out of retirement for a gig like that.

According to the L.A. Times music blog, Garth Brooks didn’t think that Steve Wynn would be able to entice him back to the stage.  “I said he couldn’t afford me. I was wrong.” And as far as the ticket price, goes, Wynn said, “That was a compromise.”

So, it’s great to have Garth back on the scene.  I think it will be good for country music.  And it’s great that he was able to swing a deal that lets him work and still keep his family at the forefront of his life.

But at those ticket prices, I’m afraid Garth Brooks is still going to be the biggest country act that I’ve never seen in live performance.