The parade of starry-eyed journalists prancing into Croke Park on Monday for an audience with Garth Brooks was only mildly unsettling. The world’s first interview with Osama bin Laden in a Tora Bora cave could hardly have attracted such a mixed bunch of reporters. RTÉ was all in, hashtag #rtenewsbehindthescenes. It despatched Six One news co-anchor Caitríona Perry with full crew for the cherished sit-down interview. An audibly excited Ray D’Arcy described the charged atmosphere, the fear and the nerves around the room as technical teams checked and rechecked their equipment. Arts and media correspondent Sinead Crowley prefaced her Twitter handle with “Miss” following a charmingly funny exchange with Brooks.
He gave it time. He had a personal word with every journalist and broadcast reporter, stood in for dozens of selfies, signed a radio presenter’s acoustic guitar and listened to at least one stream of adulation without rolling his eyes. By the end of the day there was a Garth audience for everyone in the audience. As a marketing event, the Brooks blitz was a thing of wonder.
Like every numbers-savvy megastar, he has explored creative ways to maximise revenues while hanging on to the down-with-the-people image
There is no secret to the man’s phenomenal pulling power; he studied marketing in college. And he is exquisitely courteous. It’s part of the official backstory of the permanently fat-fighting, marketing graduate son of an oil company draughtsman, both of whom wanted to be cowboys and who finally got the ranch with the son’s first record contract; the polite and likeable Grammy-winning megastar who had apparently settled into domesticity with a hilariously wild woman, Sandy Mahl (she has since been replaced by Trisha Yearwood, who is only two years younger than him, has more Grammies than her spouse and is currently sharing Thanksgiving recipes with Jill Biden); the permanently emoting country star who called records “units”, appeared on the cover of Forbes, and provided health insurance and a pension plan for the band.
Like every numbers-savvy megastar, he has explored creative ways to maximise revenues while hanging on to the down-with-the-people image. Taylor Swift fans who shopped in her online store had a better chance of getting tickets for her Reputation tour; tickets were released in batches, becoming progressively pricier – like Ryanair seats. Garth Brooks simply extends his tours until demand is met, adding extra dates until shows stop selling out.
Looking back at other events in 2014, it’s hard to believe that a dead-cat tactician wasn’t at work (that’s the introduction of a shocking topic to divert attention from a more damaging one) when Brooks announced the cancellation of five concerts in Dublin. You may have to struggle to remember important stories from that time such as the shocking exposure of charities’ accounts, the egregious in-your-face Fine Gael cronyism involving a Seanad candidate, Irish Water’s payments to consultants, the Garda commissioner’s use of “disgusting” to describe actions by Garda whistleblowers, and Kitty Holland’s report of a young mother and her three young children reduced to sleeping in a car.
Such was the fever over his doomed plan to kick off a comeback world tour with five consecutive, sold-out gigs at Croke Park that it left scorch marks on the GAA, Dublin City Council, Aiken Promotions, even the Mexican ambassador who somehow got entangled (and has since said he had never heard of GB and it was all a misunderstanding), plus a slew of politicians including the lord mayor of Dublin, Christy Burke, who caused a national cringe when he implored Brooks: “The country wants you, the country needs you.”
If emoting, wearing a cowboy hat or double denim are no crimes, Garth Brooks has never done any harm. He has never pretended to be anything he is not
But "arguably the most preposterous statement" came from the chief executive of the Labour Relations Commission, Kieran Mulvey, who believed that Ireland's international reputation had suffered irreparable damage, wrote John McManus at the time. "This is quite an assertion regarding a country that managed to bankrupt itself three years ago and is now paying the lowest interest rate in the history of the State. If the international financial community can see past a bailout, the most ardent foreign country music fans can deal with a planning screw-up by a concert promoter."
It’s doubtful if Christy Burke, a Dub to his fingertips, was a country music fan, in fairness, but McManus may have nailed it by connecting bankruptcy and bailout with the national meltdown over Brooks. People needed to vent about something, anything that was not enraging or nauseating or impoverishing. And unsurprisingly several hundred thousand of them wanted a foot-stomping night out in the capital city with a world-beating headliner, a few beers and a roaring sing-along to music that moved them.
Many remembered the 1997 gigs when, over three nights (sold out in hours), Brooks with a dozen sidekicks pumped out country/pop and stormed 120,000 fans with choruses of ruination and redemption. Cigarette lighters flickering in the inner city darkness, tears coursing down faces as they sang their hearts out to The Dance.
If emoting, wearing a cowboy hat or double denim are no crimes, Garth Brooks has never done any harm. He has never pretended to be anything he is not. No one is forced to listen to him. Yet he has scored nine number one albums in the all-genre Billboard 200 chart and remains among the top five artists in Billboard 200 history who have spent most weeks at number one, edged into fourth place this week by Taylor Swift, behind The Beatles and Elvis and still ahead of Michael Jackson.
Derision is futile. Let it go.