2022 LSU Gumbo - Book - Page 187
Tens of thousands of Louisianans flocked to Baton
Rouge to see famous country singer Garth Brooks perform
in Tiger Stadium, a concert so groundbreaking that it
will likely go down as one of the greatest nights in Death
Valley’s history — after all, it already made history as the
second earthquake recorded by local seismographs just
from the yelling and cheering of fans in the stadium.
Louisiana natives and LSU students alike are no stranger
to his acclaimed music or cultural impact on the Red Stick
capital city. So when he announced his performance in
Tiger Stadium as part of his stadium tour last December,
over 100,000 tickets sold out in mere minutes, causing
attendance to rival even the most competitive football
games of the legendary 2019 season.
The concert was the biggest in the nation since the
start of COVID-19 and the second-largest stadium concert
in North American history, behind George Strait’s 2014
farewell concert at the AT&T Stadium in Dallas, Texas,
according to Brooks.
In layman’s terms, the hype for Brooks’ first performance
in Tiger Stadium was unreal.
“Paint your face, bring your helmet, and bring your
cup,” Brooks told reporters at a press conference Friday,
predicting Saturday’s concert would be the “largest honky
tonk.” Although he joked about how he could sell out a
crowd in minutes, he made sure to ask everyone’s name,
shake hands, and answer their questions sincerely.
Brooks said his favorite thing about Baton Rouge was
“getting to be home to see those faces… those familiar faces
made you kind of settle down and play.”
Saturday was a busy day for LSU’s campus before Brooks’
arrival — the university also hosted a baseball game, track
meet and softball game, all at the same time. Within hours
of the concert’s start, roads leading to campus were plagued
with bumper-to-bumper traffic as the masses migrated.
Brooks undoubtedly shut down South Baton Rouge for the
day.
By the concert’s start, the massive crowd’s enthusiasm
was sky high.
“I had never seen Tiger Stadium so packed or so loud.
My ears were ringing,” said graphic design senior Gillian
Reeves.
After opener Mitch Rossell performed, the lights
dimmed until an Amazon Music logo appeared on the
massive projectors above the center stage, where the
audience heard a voice announce, “Alexa, play Garth Brooks
in Baton Rouge.”
Moments later, the drum set in the center slowly rose
up, and Brooks shot out from underneath. The stadium
immediately erupted into ear-splitting applause as he
opened with “All Day Long.”
The concert could have lasted all night long and nobody
would have been disappointed in the slightest. Song after
song, Tiger Stadium was electric with the audience singing,
dancing and having the absolute time of their life while
Brooks ran around the stage like a madman, singing his
heart out.
“Oh, this is crazy. Are you kidding me?” Brooks asked the
biggest party in all of Louisiana on that Saturday night.
Early in the show, he jokingly had bet the audience
if they could beat him in loudness, to which they gladly
accepted. He commented on how much he loved that
everyone was “nuts in this house.”
Calling the 102,321 audience members nuts was an
understatement by the time Garth Brooks asked, much to
the audience’s delight, “Is it time?”
Then, the 1993 cover that forever changed the city
began. “Callin’ Baton Rouge” was by far the landmark
moment of the concert, causing fans to scream at the top of
their lungs and stomp their cowboy boots on the ground.
Brooks’ guitar fiddling soon caused the second
earthquake in Tiger Stadium’s history, which was recorded
by a nearby seismograph in Nicholson Hall. The first
earthquake was recorded in October 1988 during an LSU
football game against Auburn, when LSU scored a gamewinning touchdown with less than two points left in the
game and 79,000 fans cheered until the ground shook.
Garth ecstatically cried out “L-S-U” at the conclusion of
the song, and he, along with the stadium crowd, pumped
his fist into the air. Brooks, out of breath, explained why
singing “Callin’ Baton Rouge” at LSU meant so much to
him.
“That was better than I could have ever dreamed it’d
be,” Brooks said. “Thanks for letting us be a small piece of
thread in the family and the fabric of LSU Tigers’ Death
Valley.”
Though the Baton Rouge anthem wasn’t the final
song of the night. Afterward he offered phenomenal
performances of “Friends in Low Places” and “The Dance”
before the band departed and the country singer took song
requests for solo performances.
“I understand why you guys are national champions at
everything,” Brooks said in appreciation of the audience.
The band later returned, and Garth performed a showstopping duet of “Shallow” from “A Star Is Born” with his
wife, Trish Yearwood. Yearwood sang solo before leaving
with the rest of the band, but Garth decided to stick around
and sing a bit more with just his guitar.
The audience seemed intoxicated from the music by the
final song of the night, a cover of “American Pie” by Don
McLean. He stooped down to the front row and embraced a
young fan holding a sign saying, “six more rounds of chemo
to go, thank you for everything your music has done.”
“I have seen him in concert seven times, and this was
definitely the best concert of his I’ve been to,” chemical
engineering senior Carson McBroom said.
As the concert wrapped up and the never-ending Baton
Rouge traffic commenced once again, Brooks tweeted that
his LSU concert was “better than [his] wildest dreams.”
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