The Garth Brooks Concert Fiasco
Read the songs. The clues are in the song titles of the Garth Brooks playlist. They tell us it was a Beer Run for Big Money. It’s the Same Old Story.A commercial decision, Digging for Gold, to sell a product that doesn’t exist, leaves 400,000 people distraught. People pay hard-found cash, reportedly to the tune of stg£21 million, for this non-existent product – a ticket to a concert by American country-pop star Garth Brooks. They scream Squeeze Me In. These tickets don’t actually exist, being ‘subject to licence’. It goes Against The Grain to say it, but this American Dream Ain’t Goin’ Down.
Ireland didn’t give Garth Brooks the Cold Shoulder. No matter who he asks Why I Ain’t Running, the bottom line remains that together with the promoter, he fouled it up. He can sing Please Come to Boston and Please Come to Denver, but he won’t sing in Dublin, at Croke Park, a major sporting venue that also hosts concerts, in order to Do What You Gotta Do to make money. It’s not a case of The Old Man’s Back In Town. More a case of It’s A Roller Coaster and Nobody Gets Off In This Town.
Notions of the economic benefit from the putative concerts break down under scrutiny. Small monies into local peoples’ hands as casual labour, Workin’ For A Livin’. Medium monies into local companies, mainly hotels and bars. Major money to the seller of the non-existent tickets, to Garth Brooks and his associates, much of which leaves the island of Ireland.
There is political leverage when individual desires are pooled together to form a mass desire of 400,000 people. Yet the brouhaha does nobody any good. It simply confirms Ireland as a playground and a soft touch.
In a masterstroke of Burning Bridges before you even get to them, a combination of promoter, sports organisation and City Council create a scenario worthy of Friends in Low Places. It’s nobody and everybody’s fault. The guilty remain Anonymous and ticket buyers will never meet them Face To Face.
Ticket buyers mouth Unanswered Prayers and put up The White Flag. Garth Brooks learnsthat This Ain’t Tennessee, singing I’d Rather Have Nothing than a compromise deal. The promoter, who originally said I’ve Got A Good Thing Going, now wonders what he’ll do If Tomorrow Never Comes.
It is a fiasco. Everybody is in the dark. There is no one to Leave A Light On. Thepromoter turns out not to be Mr Right. The Secret Track leads to an empty stadium andempty pockets. It is a Shameless episode. Shameless, because nobody takes the blame. It’s been a Good Ride Cowboy and now it’s time to get off.
Will We Bury The Hatchet? Only after the monies are paid back, following unreasonable delays and the deduction of service charges by credit card companies and others. Garth Brooks might say That’s the Way Love Goes when you catch The Fever, desire The Gift, get into The Dance and face the inevitable; The Change.
Nobody is left Standing Outside The Fire.
Fan options? Limited. You May Be Right. Buy a Garth Brooks DVD, invite your friends around and have a hooley on your own terms?
