If you had a good time at the Garth Brooks show in First Niagara Center on Thursday, well, that’s nice, but I think there’s one guy who had more fun than you.
That’d be Brooks himself.
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Throughout Thursday’s show – the first of six that Brooks will perform at the same venue between now and Sunday – the most successful country artist of all time proved himself to be one of the most charismatic performers of all time, as well.
Like a kid who woke up one morning to discover that he’d have the next week off of school because of snow, Brooks arrived on stage with a massive grin on his face, and spent the next few hours trying to wipe it off.
He was not successful in that endeavor.
Brooks has not performed in Buffalo since 1998. In fact, he hasn’t really performed at all since that time because of a self-imposed hiatus – supposedly broken at the urging of his daughter, who convinced Dad to get back to doing what he does best once she had graduated high school. The current tour, behind the “Man Against Machine” album, has already been successful enough, in terms of buzz and tickets sold, to prove that Brooks has retained full sway over his audience, despite the lengthy absence.
Brooks’ job, and it’s one he takes seriously, is to provide a few hours of blessed forgetfulness to his followers, by acting as event coordinator for a big ol’ party. He made it plain early on during Thursday’s show that he wouldn’t be asking his fans to endure a full rendering of his latest album.
“I go to shows because I wanna hear the old stuff!” he screamed at one point, and then tore through a set that covered all of his hits, and even made time for a midshow duet with, and a brief set from, his wife, Trisha Yearwood.
“There is no song I’m tired of singing,” Brooks said Thursday afternoon during his preshow news conference in First Niagara Center, and he was not lying, apparently. Whether digging into older favorites like “Two Of A Kind, Workin’ On A Full House,” “The River,” and “The Thunder Rolls,” or indulging in the corny but lovable ballad “Unanswered Prayers,” Brooks was fully invested in the show. He’s not a particularly adventurous vocalist, but he does what he does very well, and he’s backed by a long-serving band of musicians who just plain don’t make mistakes. “Tight” doesn’t even begin to cover it.
“Rodeo,” “The Beaches of Cheyenne,” “Two Pina Coladas,” “Papa Loved Mama,” “Ain’t Goin’ Down (Til the Sun Comes Up)” – Brooks delivered all of them as if it was the very first time he’d done so. Brooks is as middle of the road as an artist can get, but he puts a traffic cone at either end of the block and turns the middle of the road into a big old block party, with Brooks as your hilarious uncle, who just so happens to also be a songwriter and singer.
Oh, and from a purely visual standpoint, the presentation was simply outstanding. The stage was ornate, the lighting rig expansive, the drummer ensconced in something that looked like a futuristic Christmas ornament, and the band members were free to roam about on runways that allowed access to fans seated behind the stage. Brooks played to the whole crowd, spending as much time coddling the folks in the obstructed view sections as he did cheerleading for the front-of-house.
Musically, Brooks is not up to anything particularly revelatory or groundbreaking. Which is exactly the point, apparently. He can play what are essentially endless rewrites of John Denver’s “Thank God I’m A Country Boy,” give them a bit more arena rock sheen, scream into his headset mic like a less-emotionally disturbed Ted Nugent, and cavort all over the stage in his Wrangler jeans and “everyman” cowboy shirt while singing a power ballad. And somehow, it all makes sense.
Brooks is a hoot. If he was not genuinely having the time of his life on the stage of First Niagara Center on Thursday, then he is the world’s greatest actor.
Brooks plays First Niagara Center shows at 6 and 10:30 p.m. Friday and Saturday, and 7 p.m. Sunday.
email: jmiers@buffnews.com
