Just after 5pm on Sunday, Dublin’s city centre was a sea of Stetsons as some 80,000 people made their way to the third night of Garth Brooks concerts in Croke Park.
On O’Connell Street, friends Alice and Marie, both from Dublin, wore matching pink hats and sipped warm cans of Heineken as they walked towards the venue in the rain.
Alice was going to the concert for the second night in a row.
“I can’t get enough of him. Roll on night two,” she said.
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Marie was “really excited” for her first night. She said she had been “waiting forever” for the day to come when she would finally get to see the US country singer performing live.
Despite the rain and the walk to come, the pair were in good spirits.
“You couldn’t keep me away,” Marie added.
Nearer the venue, the surrounding streets filled up with concert-goers singing Brooks’s songs as a tune-up to the main event. Street traders had set up camp selling hats and Brooks merchandise and were hopeful of good sales continuing on Sunday and over the following weekend, when he performs at the GAA stadium twice more.
Cardboard cutouts
Local businesses have been doing their best to cash in on the concert buzz, with The Bald Eagle pub in Phibsborough erecting a sign saying “Home of Garth Brooks” and erecting cardboard cutouts of the singer inside. The venue was offering takeaway pints and cocktails to those heading down the Royal Canal in the direction of the gig on foot.
Claire, from Co Meath, was going to the concert with a group of friends. She said the atmosphere outside was “just full of a real buzz” and “everybody is just delighted to finally get to see him live”. Her friend, Ross, said he “grew up on country music” and was “over the moon” to have got a ticket to see Brooks.
The 60-year-old singer’s three concerts over the weekend were his first performances in Dublin for 25 years. He was due to play five concerts in 2014 but these were cancelled after locals complained to local authorities about the number of licences granted and the impact of the noise and disruption in the area.
Dublin City Council originally said it would only grant licences for three of the concerts, but Brooks refused to perform fewer than five.
Residents were unhappy with the amount of rubbish strewn on the streets near their home as concert-goers had left behind empty beer cans and glass bottles along the pathways.
”People are just so inconsiderate. It’s a joke that we have to put up with this. No other residents around the country have to deal with anything like this. It’s been a long weekend, to say the least,” one resident, who did not want to be named, told The Irish Times.
There will be a short break before Garth Brooks fans descend on the city’s streets again for the final two concerts of his run next Friday and Saturday.
