Who opened for Garth Brooks last night

Garth Brooks Stadium Tour at NRG Stadium on Saturday, August 6, 2022.

Photo: Jamaal Ellis/Contributor

A signature Garth Brooks show is equal parts music and spectacle. And the spectacle is Brooks himself.

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The country superstar closed the U.S. leg of his Stadium Tour with a Saturday night show at NRG Stadium that was frenetic and frenzied from the moment he stepped onstage. He appeared at 9:15 p.m. from underneath a levitating drum set, his arms above his head as if he was lifting it into the air.

Garth Brooks Stadium Tour at NRG Stadium on Saturday, August 6, 2022.

Photo: Jamaal Ellis/Contributor

A voice commanded, “Alexa, play Garth live from Houston, Texas” as a blue ring lit up around the stadium. It was a clever nod to Brooks’ exclusive partnership with Amazon Music.

Brooks ran around the stage for the entirety of his almost three-hour performance, growling “Yeaaaaaaaaaaah!” when the audience cheered. It made them get even louder. He was backed by a band of Nashville's best players, some of whom have been with him for decades.

He pointed out homemade signs in the crowd, of which there are many:

“Garth, please sing at our wedding!”

“We were named after you – Garth and Brooke!”

One man requested “She’s Every Woman,” a song usually performed later in the show, and a guitar pick.

“This is a tightly choreographed show. We can’t just move things around,” Brooks quipped before playing the song and handing his pick to the ecstatic fan.

Brooks would often outstretch his arms and get a wild look in his eyes, an assurance to the massive crowd that the energy was about to notch up even more. He promised “lots of the old stuff” and followed through with “If Tomorrow Never Comes,” his first No. 1 single; and “Every Time That it Rains,” a deep cut from his debut album.

“Two Piña Coladas” prompted one of the night’s first big singalongs. “The River” was accentuated with gospel bombast, thanks to a pair of talented backup vocalists. “Unanswered Prayers” had couples slow dancing in the aisles, caught by the venue’s multiple screens.

Garth Brooks Stadium Tour at NRG Stadium on Saturday, August 6, 2022.

Photo: Jamaal Ellis/Contributor

Brooks repeatedly stressed how important the show was for him and his band. (He performs next month in Ireland.) He last played Houston in 2018 during two RodeoHouston dates at NRG Stadium. He’s always been a spirited, vibrant stage performer. But here, he was almost giddy. The smile never left his face, even during the heartbreak tunes.

“Anything is fair game tonight. We can play anybody you want to tonight,” he said before strumming into a cover of George Strait’s “Amarillo by Morning.” His extended encore included Billy Joel’s “Piano Man,” dance floor favorite “You Never Even Call My by My Name” and Don McLean’s “American Pie.”

“Ain’t Goin’ Down (‘Til the Sun Comes Up)” was a ferocious mix of audience and performer energy. Brooks introduced Callin’ Baton Rouge as his favorite song to perform live. Pop crossover hit “Shameless” was one of his strongest vocal moments. 

Wife and country star in her own right Trisha Yearwood joined Brooks for a cover of "Shallow" late in the set, along with his "Standing Outside the Fire." She took a solo turn on her debut single "She's in Love with the Boy."

“Friends in Low Places,” of course, was peak Garth, activating another raucous singalong. Brooks tore open a bag of peanut butter M&Ms, handed some out and ate some as well. Confetti cannons blasted white streamers into the crowd. The entire stadium was perfectly in sync with Brooks, the band and the song.

Opener Mitch Rossell got a bit lost in the cavernous venue. But Ghost Hounds, a country-rock band fronted by charismatic San Antonio singer Tré Nation, was the perfect warm-up. Their original songs have the kind of energy and melody that makes them feel instantly familiar.

  • Joey Guerra is the music critic for the Houston Chronicle. He also covers various aspects of pop culture. He has reviewed hundreds of concerts and interviewed hundreds of celebrities, from Justin Bieber to Dolly Parton to Beyonce. He's appeared as a regular correspondent on Fox26 and was head judge and director of the Pride Superstar singing competition for a decade. He has been named journalist of the year multiple times by both OutSmart Magazine and the FACE Awards. He also covers various aspects of pop culture, including the local drag scene and "RuPaul's Drag Race."

Back in 1985, an entertainment attorney from Dallas named Rod Phelps caught wind of a young country singer who’d been wowing audiences in Oklahoma honky-tonks and bars, so he drove up to a Tulsa club to see Garth Brooks play. Impressed, Phelps produced Brooks' first demo, establishing a North Texas connection with the biggest name in country music that has lasted nearly four decades.

Brooks' concert Saturday night at AT&T was a love letter to a region that made his career, the fans who have supported him since the beginning and the people closest to him who have made his career possible.

It all started simply with an opening set from Nashville singer-songwriter and Brooks collaborator Matt Rossi, who sang a short set of country favorites from the likes of George Strait and David Allan Coe while clad in a Roger Staubach jersey.

Rossi thanked the audience and introduced the night's next warm-up act, none other than Trisha Yearwood. Radiant and smiling brightly, Yearwood gave the audience exactly what they wanted with a short set of songs that included the ballad "How Do I Live" and the pop country smash hit "She's In Love with a Boy," complete with kiss cam, and of course, a few awkward kisses.

When Ms. Yearwood left the stage, a countdown beckoning the approach of Mr. Yearwood came up on the stadium's enormous screens, and when the countdown finished, Amazon's Alexa sounded out, "play Garth Brooks live in Dallas."

To say that the crowd went wild is an understatement. It was pandemonium when Brooks took the stage in the round, rising up from beneath the drum kit and opening with the only new song he would play, "All Day Long," from the his 2020 album Fun. The song was, in all honesty, a rough start to the night, with overhead video of the lyrics encouraging people to sing a song they barely knew, assuming they had even heard it at all.

Brooks promised the audience that he, too, would hate it if he went to a concert and all he heard was the new stuff and went straight into his 1991 single "Rodeo." As rough as the start was, by the time it was "bulls and blood...dust and mud," the greatest showman in country music had officially hit his stride.

Over the course of 19 songs and a seven-song encore, Brooks and company took the audience through the classic songs, bringing back all the memories that had brought us to this time.

Brooks also played homage to the music that inspired him, shouting out names like George Strait, Randy Travis and Keith Whitely, before launching into a cover of the Nitty Gritty Dirt Band's "Fishing in the Dark."

Midway through the set, Brooks acknowledged a fan holding a sign for "New Way to Fly" from 1990's No Fences and proceeded to play a solo, acoustic version of the song, saying that this was also Yearwood's favorite song of his.

Introducing guitar player Mark Casstevens from the iconic studio group the G-Men as the guitarist who wrote every intro to any Garth Brooks song you know, Brooks said the whole audience would know the penultimate song by the first four notes.

That's when more than 100,000 people started singing every single word to "Friends in Low Places," which included the mysterious third verse heard only in live versions of the song in which the last lines are "Just wait 'til I finish this glass, and sweet little lady I'll head back to the bar, and you can kiss my ass!"

The encore was an absolute delight, with Brooks circling the stage reading more fan signs and doing his best to fill the requests, playing the first verse of "The Red Strokes" and "She's Every Woman."

The night ended with Brooks paying special tribute to his wife who, Brooks said to the surprise of many in the audience, had sung backup on over 100 of his songs. The two sang their cover of "Shallow" and closed with the barn-burner "Standing Outside the Fire" with Yearwood singing backup.

In 1993, Garth Brooks performed a legendary concert at the old Texas Stadium in Irving for an NBC broadcast. He was already a major success at that point, but that concert, with Brooks literally standing outside fire and flying through the audience, established him as an artist bigger than country music.

By the end of the night, Brooks apologized to the fans and Jerry Jones for not doing Saturday night's concert a decade earlier, calling the night the greatest he had ever had in our fair region.

"Dallas," Brooks said, "where it all started...comes full circle. My career is complete."

Who Is Garth Brooks opener?

Tour dates.

Who is the support act for Garth Brooks?

Surprisingly, concert officials say there will be no support act for Garth at any of his concerts.

How many people were at Garth Brooks concert last night?

A sold-out crowd nearing 90,000 was champing at the bit when Brooks, 60, finally took the stage at 9:30 p.m., about an hour later than expected.

Who was singing with Garth Brooks in Dublin?

During the two hour concerts, he performed between 24 and 26 songs, with his wife Trisha Yearwood joining him for a special duet at the end.