On Nov. 3rd, 1999, I watched Saturday Night Live.
Garth Brooks was the host, and Chris Gaines — Brooks’ rock-star alter-ego — was the musical guest. A bubbly Brooks entertained in a signature black cowboy hat and a black turtleneck, and an emotionally conflicted Gaines performed behind long, dark bangs.
“He’s crossed over,” I remember my mom whispering during the show, meaning this country music legend had successfully crossed over into the mainstream pop-rock arena. I gasped, even though I didn’t really understand the implications of what she said.
After all, I was only 14 years old — and I wasn’t a Brooks fan.
Fast forward 16 years. It’s 8:25 p.m. on March 18. I’m still not really a Brooks fan, but I’m sitting in a packed Pepsi Center, waiting for Brooks’ first Denver performance in nearly 20 years.
“You are now five minutes away from Garth,” a voice over the loudspeaker commands. The cowboy-hatted crowd vibrated with fervency.
I turned to ask a few folks sitting near me just what all this Brooks fuss is about.
“We saw him together in 1996, our senior year of high school,” two girlfriends sitting next to each other told me. They grew up together in Chicago, and now one lives in Denver. “He retired, and then he came back, and we wanted to see him together again, so I flew in.”
“The songs remind me things,” another woman said. “High school, college, friends, memories.”
“Listen to the lyrics,” one fan told me. “The words are all about everything you’ve gone through in your life.”
Next thing I know, the lights go dark and a colossal timer is center stage, counting down from a minute. The crowd clamoured at each tick and tock until the clock struck zero. A cloud of smoke, and then, jeans, a black cowboy hat, an acoustic guitar, a black T-shirt and a black button-down appeared. It was him.
Brooks and his talented band delightfully exploded onto the stage, with the title track from his newest album, “Man Against Machine.” Denver was thrilled to have their Garth back, and 53-year old Garth was having the time of his life.
Fan or not, the showman wanted every single concert goer in the venue to feel special. With every point of his finger, wave of his hand and word out of his mouth, he did just that.
It was effortless.
During the flirty “That Summer,” you couldn’t help but get down. While he sang “Two Pina Coladas,” Brooks made me wish I knew the all the words.
When the band partied on with “Ain’t Goin Down (‘Til the Sun Come up),” Brooks stole the camera and filmed his fans. Somehow, during Brooks’ “Unanswered Prayers” I was reminded of people and memories I hadn’t thought about in a long time.
While Brooks belted the ballad “The River,” I cried. I cried, and I had never even heard that song before.
After a brief but powerful appearance by his wife and country music star Trisha Yearwood, Brooks came back on stage, and it hit me: his songs and his shows evoke emotion because they awaken memories.
It’s no surprise that after that moment, he played an heroic version of “Friends in Low Places,” a song that brought tears to my eyes as I remembered how much I loved hearing my friends sing it in college.
The night ended with an electric performance of “Standing Outside the Fire.”
I didn’t realize it at first, but once the audience began harmonizing the words, I remembered that I knew them, too. A good friend of mine had put that song on a mix CD for me back in 2010.
I had almost forgotten.
On Wednesday night, Garth Brooks’ performance and music gave his audience the gift of remembering — even if that meant remembering the memory of his Chris Gaines performance in 1999.
If you’ve got tickets to one of his next eight shows in Denver, you’re lucky, because Brooks is incredibly generous. He’ll bring that same gift to you.
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John Leyba is a Denver Post photojournalist and regular contributor to Reverb.
