Garth Brooks finished his historic five-nighter at Croke Park last night with a promise that he’ll be back.
The Baton Rouge singer refused to rule out a Croker replay – but he said he’d prefer to do a nationwide tour next time.
Just before taking to the stage for his fifth and final show at GAA HQ, he said: “I don’t mind coming to you.
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“Ed Sheeran – who I love to death – he has two nights here and two nights somewhere – it was a full tour and after this week of touring around, I don’t mind coming to you.
“If it’s out in the middle of a frickin field somewhere, I just want to play there – I just love this place – I just want to play here.”
Dressed in grey combats, a baseball cap with a tricolour, and a shamrock T-shirt that read “feeling lucky today – life is good”, the star could have passed for a tourist.
Garth added: “What you [Ireland] give an artist, you can’t get it anywhere on this planet. There’s no place like Ireland. Any chance to play here, I’d love that.”
There were more smiles than tears yesterday when Brooks and his wife, Trisha Yearwood raved about their time here at a pre-show press conference.
Quizzed on why he’s been so emotional and what goes through his head when fans sing his songs back to him, he opened up about the background to his 1997 visit.
Garth said: “Eight years is the tip of the iceberg. For me it was 1997. Something happened here in 1997 and I am not sure you guys even know.
“[The] First night I get the call and my mother’s cancer is back and we were going to head on back. So I never really got to enjoy the thing here.
“Then you get ready to come back especially after retirement – so coming here. It’s not just 2014 it’s ’97, it’s everything.
“I gotta tell you once you’ve tasted it you can’t come back here quick enough but at the same time, you don’t want to wear the people out.
“Trying to describe what it is when you guys sing, I can’t – I just start crying.
“What’s crazy is I’ve seen people who have done the whole tour together and they’re bawling like babies. All we can do is cry – damn it.
“I wish I had some articulation – when all you can do as a grown man is cry like a baby, well that’s saying something right there.” The country icon explained the next time they’re in Ireland, they’ll be enjoying their holidays.
Garth added: “I can tell you this, the next time we’re back here we won’t be we’ll be back to do what we’ve been doing this last week – it’s really cool.”
Asked if he was more a ‘culchie’ or a city slicker, he replied: “Which one likes to have more fun? I’ll fit in that category.”
At 4.30pm yesterday, I was being serenaded by a Garth Brooks lookalike singing The Dance outside the Croke Park Hotel.
Located directly across from Croker, the hotel resembled the Grand Ole Opry as hundreds of cowboys and cowgirls donning Stetsons and cowboy boots click-clacked their way past a life-sized Garth Brooks cut-out and into the busy bar.
All were eager for a quick pint or two before worshipping at the altar of the country legend for what was rumoured to be his last stadium gig.
The lookalike (and soundalike), Trevor Smith, from Bolliver, Co Meath, revealed he has an eight-piece tribute band.
He saw his hero in the flesh for the first time last Friday and was back again for the final show with his wife Sylvia.
Dressed in a show-stopping black and yellow cowboy shirt, Smith told the Irish Mirror: “I’ve been doing this for 12 years – we’re not jumping on the bandwagon – I’m amazed how fit he is running around like a young fella at 60 years of age.
“My favourite song is The Dance but Baton Rouge is my favourite one to play. He’ll go back with a few quid in his pocket and we’ll get a good kickback – hopefully this time next year we’ll be loaded.”
Garth first-timers were a rare find – most were like Smith and Monaghan pals Louise McNally-Curran, Deborah Flanagan and her sister-in-law Siobhan McElvaney, here for the opening night.
Deborah, who saw him at The Point in 1994, 1995 and at Croke Park in 1997 – as well as last week, said: “It’s like queuing for the Queen, queuing for Garth.
“We queued out for 2014 overnight in Monaghan and were devastated when he cancelled. We believe in forgiving and forgetting.”
Siobhan, who was here last week with daughters Lauren and Sinead, added: “We don’t think he’ll ever be back – it’s the end of the line so we are back to take him all in.
“My girls grew up listening to him from when they were babies – and I’m back again without them.”
Dad-of-three Sean Walsh was there with his wife Mairead and friends Irene O’Donovan and Michelle Dullea, who drove up from West Cork on Saturday morning.
He said: “We did the same gig last Friday – we were here and we had to come back. The first gig and the last. We loved it so much we went back on Ticketmaster.
“We’ve never done that before – the atmosphere, we’d never been to anything like it in my life – and we love our gigs.
“Westlife was good but this is a whole other level. Nearly 100,000 Irish people in a stadium, knowing the words to every song.”
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