Garth Brooks review: Hurt is healed at magnificent first night at Croke Park
Garth Brooks on stage at Croke Park, Dublin. Picture: Mark Stedman
After an eight-year delay, Garth Brooks had finally reached Croke Park — and it took just five minutes for the waterworks to flow.
“I love it here,” he said, tears, streaming down his face. “I came for one purpose, and that was to raise hell and have a party ... we’re gonna play a lot of cowboy songs tonight!”
Under a huge 'g' sign, and cheered on by a rainbow sea of Stetson hats — they ran from white to pink and all the way back — Brooks, 60, kicked off his run of five Dublin concerts with a punchy, passionate set.
His reward was a welcome that left him visibly floored and which will have healed whatever hurt feelings remained after his planned 2014 dates at the same venue ran aground on red tape.
Brooks is an American superstar — an artist who has sold more records than Elvis Presley and is neck-and-neck with The Beatles. But Ireland has always held a special place in his affections, the shows he played at Croke Park 25 years ago leaving a lasting impression on him.
And he revelled in the love at Croke Park as he opened with 'All Day Long' and then blitzed through favourites such as 'The Beaches of Cheyenne', before wrapping himself in an Irish flag (and crying a little more).
Anticipation had built through the evening around the stadium. Hawkers on O’Connell St sold cowboy hats with hastily-affixed 'I ♥ Garth' stickers while a speaker blasted his 1990s mega-hit 'Friends In Low Places'.
The mood was somewhere between hoedown and showdown as fans counted down to finally seeing Brooks in the flesh. A tourist store in the city centre had even opened a pop-up Garth Brooks shop in its basement.
The singer arrived on stage 30 minutes later than billed to allow stragglers to take their seats.
Inside Croke Park, the stadium was a swirl of accents. Cork, Dublin, the North, the UK, America — for Garth Brooks fans, all roads had led to Jones’s Rd.
And when Brooks finally went on and blasted through hits such as 'The Thunder Rolls' and 'Friends In Low Places', the excitement had the quality of a localised earthquake, especially as his wife Trisha Yearwood joined him for a duet on 'Shallow' from .
“You came back!” yelled Brooks “I’m going to enjoy this moment. I love you.”
The romance flowed both ways.
For the 80,000 at Croke Park, Brook’s return was a late rendezvous to savour.
