Garth Brooks held a press conference today and it’s streaming live on GarthBrooks.com. He is addressing lots of things and has addressed Ireland.
Today Garth Brooks has announced he will be releasing new material and has signed a deal with Sony Music. There is no date on the album yet but when pressed he said we can expect something in the next two months. This is a huge deal for Sony Music, as Garth is a notorious solo production type business.
For the first time ever, Garth is set to release his music digitally but only on GarthBrooks.com so that he can release music his way. Doing it right and having full control is very important to him as expressed to us in January at the Dublin press conference.
On the Irish shows, he told the story of the 240,000 tickets sold, Limerick system going down and the second on sale facilitating Limerick. He spoke of monthly meetings that they passed all the tests for the Croke Park shows. Then was told it’s three and to figure what to do with the other two shows. For Garth it’s important to treat all fans equally and even in Vegas he refused to sell tickets at different prices. He siad he therefore can’t phathom selling 240,000 tickets and make those fans happy, but treat 160,000 fans differently.
He said “Don’t sell a show to the people, get their hopes up and then cancel on them, “If the Prime Minister (Taoiseach) wants to talk to me, I’ll fly, walk, crawl over this weekend myself to talk to him”. When pressed by Irish journalists about the embarassment he said “Ireland should never be embarassed, they are the most loving people on the planet. The system should be looking at itself, we have flaws and this is how we get this done”.
On the options available to save the shows, he said matinee’s were explored but he didn’t want to give people a half-assed tired show. He will do anything it takes except cancel on part of the fans. Giving away some of the key information about the live show he said that “It’s monsterous, it must match the quality and integrity of the Irish people”. The staging itself is 255ft wide, 20ft tall and that’s just the video screen. In a massively shocking stat, he revealed that 75% of people buying tickets were 25 years or younger. He also spoke that this for him it feels like a special moment, like Elvis Pressleys comeback shows, “One place on the planet to show this special moment, Ireland was the pick“.
Garth finished off pressing on Ireland saying that he feels they should put on the show, fix the laws after and if anyone is sad about this and the cancellations, you’re not one billionth as sad as he is, because he’s being denied the greatest experience of my life.
The press conference continues on GarthBrooks.com. Dates for the world tour are expected to be released on July 14th/15th. He said that the staging for the world tour is different to the Irish one as the Irish show is a one off.