Garth Brooks didn’t put his name on his brand new honky-tonk on Lower Broadway in Nashville. And aside from his one gangbuster opening performance on Friday, he also has no plans to appear on stage.
The reason, Brooks made clear at a press conference this week, is that Friends in Low Places Bar & Honky-Tonk is not a vanity project. It is his gesture of repayment to the city that gave him his career and it is his gift of repayment to new generations of artists.
“This city has been amazing to me,” said Brooks, 61, standing on stage before a large group of reporters. “When this [opportunity] the thought arose, does garth brooks owe nashville? You can bet Garth Brooks owes Nashville a debt. So I’m watching Lower Broadway, I’m going, it’s not the fact that Garth Brooks is missing, but ‘Friends in Low Places’ is missing here… So that’s why it’s not Garth Bar. I’ve said it before, and I’ll say it again: You can like Garth Brooks. You can’t love Garth Brooks. Either way, chances are you’ve probably sung ‘Friends in Low Places’.”
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Indeed, Brooks has claimed – with pride and humility – that the song, perhaps his most famous hit, is better known than he is. The song’s lyrics also refer to a dive bar that certainly bears no resemblance to what Brooks has masterfully created. The sleek and open space features a long stage (which retracts to create a dance floor), a state-of-the-art sound system, massive video screens, multiple bars, a huge wall of windows overlooking the hustle and bustle of Lower Broadway, and a second-floor balcony that Brooks says offers “the best place in the house”.
“This is for the next ones,” he said of the up-and-coming acts soon to grace the Friends stage. “I can come here and play. And I’ll admit this: it’s too nice! … Doesn’t this look like what I grew up in, does it?”
Brooks fondly recalled his early days, playing rundown clubs that were good for nothing but “selling beer and just playing country music,” eating day-old sandwiches left over from a famous band that had played the venue the day before, and “cramming seven guys and all your gear into an eight-passenger van and just be stinky.”
“This,” he said, grinning in his luxurious surroundings, “doesn’t seem stinky to me!”
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The venue was officially opened on Friday when Brooks performed to about 600 lucky fans who won tickets through BIG 615, one of the stations on Brooks’ global radio network on TuneIn. (Over 2 million entries were received in just the first 10 days after Brooks announced the contest last month.) The show has been streaming live on Amazon Prime, as well as the Garth Channel on TuneIn, and will reportedly be available for reruns on Prime soon.
One of a series of “Dive Bar” shows Brooks has performed in recent years, Friday night’s event featured such sought-after favorites as “The River,” “The Dance,” “The Thunder Rolls” and, of course, “Friends in Low Places.” Brooks’ superstar wife, Trisha Yearwood, guested on the duet “Shallow,” fellow Oklahoman and Hall of Famer Ronnie Dunn also joined Brooks on their duet, “Rodeo Man,” which appears on Brooks’ new album, Time traveler.
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Garth Brooks.
Amazon Music Live
After Friday, the gym will have what Brooks called a “soft opening” as work continues on it.
“We’ll try to stay open on the weekends,” he said. “Then if we stay open the weekend, maybe we’ll go through New Year’s, maybe Valentine’s Day, close again, and then open the whole thing in March.”
When completed, Friends in Low Places will feature both drink and food across five floors, including a rooftop bar called Oasis, another nod to the song.
The establishment joins the neon constellation of famous honky-tonks on a famous downtown Nashville street. So far, other country stars with bars, restaurants and music venues include Dierks Bentley, Blake Shelton, Jason Aldean, Miranda Lambert, Luke Bryan and Alan Jackson. Eric Church’s position is opening soon.
Brooks isn’t afraid of competition and says he follows the philosophy of Las Vegas hotelier Steve Wynn. The goal, he said, is not “to get a bigger piece of the pie, but to make the whole pie bigger.”
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Currently, the space still looks like a work in progress. So far, among the rare decorations are two palm trees reaching up to the vaulted ceiling. (They are called “Earl Bud” and “Dewayne,” Brooks shared, after “Friends in Low Places” songwriters Earl Bud Lee and Dewayne Blackwell.) The palm trees are also carried over to the venue’s logo, perhaps fitting for the artist who sang “Two Pina Colada”, “Message in a Bottle” and, for that matter, “Cheyenne Beaches”.
Any cowboy motif, Brooks said, will mostly have to be secured by patrons’ hats and boots. He says fans will also be invited to submit their own eclectic memorabilia for the hall’s walls, but he has no plans to raid his own stash of plaques and awards to display. So no, don’t expect the honky-tonk to become Garth’s museum.
“That’s for another building and another time,” Brooks teased.
The venue opening was just one of the highlights of the week for the country legend: Friday is his latest box set, which includes Time traveler, has been officially released, exclusively at Bass Pro Shops. The seven-disc set, which also includes previously released albums, is the third and final release of his limited series.
At the press conference, Brooks also announced 18 new dates to be added next year to his Las Vegas residency, “Garth Brooks/Plus ONE,” which launched in May at the Colosseum at Caesars Palace.
Brooks is clearly enjoying the spontaneity of his latest Vegas engagement, as well as the focused attention of the crowd. He ensured this by requiring the audience to put their phones in their bags.
“It really becomes a laboratory,” he said. “You will never see the set list. The band almost quit because of that, and then they started saying, ‘OK, I get it.’ We don’t even know what’s coming next, which makes them more fun… So everyone has a good time. So there is no set list, no cameras. Everything is simple… and people are nice enough to play along.”
The need for a phone, Brooks added, creates unexpected benefits. “What I love,” he said, “is the friendships they make while waiting for the show. They used to be buried in their phones, but now they have to talk to people they don’t know. It’s a beautiful thing.”
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Source: HIS Education