Garth Brooks World Tour: Hamilton, Ontario

We’re lucky.

Often we get to see awesome music up close and personal. We meet and talk to artists and Trish gets right in the action where the sweat is flying and the bass is pounding to take great photos… and we do that work because we love it.

But on Thursday night in Hamilton, Ontario – at First Ontario Centre, with thousands of strangers, we were fans in our seats watching one of the greatest country artists and performers of all-time… GARTH BROOKS!

You all know Garth. The man with 25 ACM Awards, 9 CMA Awards, a CCMA Award, 12 #1 albums, and 19 #1 singles… He’s the man people who don’t know country music think of when the genre is mentioned.

And that’s why we were there. We wanted to see that man do what he has been doing since If Tomorrow Never Comes was his first #1 hit it 1989. We wanted to see the 6 time Entertainer of the Year entertain us. We wanted to be fans.

So we didn’t take the big cameras. We didn’t take notes or get a set list. But I promise you that we cheered and sang our hearts out from start to finish as Garth Brooks hammered us with hit after hit after hit.

Note: We can not forget to mention Trisha Yearwood in this post. With an impressive library of her own, she came up on stage to give Garth a little break and nailed it. Hits like She’s In Love With The Boy, XXX’s and OOO’s, Walkaway Joe, How Do I Live… and In Another’s Eyes (with Garth) all sounded perfect. We loved it.

I could write 1,000 words about Garth Brooks being the reason I love country music today, or that this website exists to feature music we love… but all I really want to do right now is tell you how amazing he was live in front of my eyes.

From the second Garth took the stage the crowd was alive in a way I’ve never seen before. We’ve seen Blake Shelton and Luke Bryan and Keith Urban and Carrie Underwood and Miranda Lambert headline shows, and none of them got the kind of reaction that Garth Brooks got for nearly 3 hours on Thursday night.

From elated screams to the thousands of voices united in song, it was electric, and perfect. Mr. Brooks worked every single ounce of energy out of us. All of it.

This man runs the stage, including the back (where our seats were) to make sure that everyone is involved. His band works the crowd to keep everyone up, up, up. The whole show is designed to make sure that every person who paid their money leaves feeling like they should have paid more. And that’s how we felt when we walked out the door.

To tell you what songs Garth Brooks sang on Thursday night would take up a lot of space in this post. It would be easier to tell you what he didn’t sing. But we can promise you, if you’re going to see him on this tour in Hamilton or Ottawa, that you will hear your favourites… The Thunder Rolls, Friends In Low Places, Standing Outside The Fire, The Dance, The River, If Tomorrow Never Comes, What She’s Doing Now, Ain’t Goin’ Down, Callin’ Baton Rouge, Two Of A Kind Workin’ On A Full House, We Shall Be Free, Unanswered Prayers, and more, more, more…

Garth Brooks sang songs that I forgot I knew the words to. It took me back to the Crook and Chase Country Countdown on Country 105 in Peterborough. It took me back to watching Garth live in Central Park on HBO and buying the Double Live CD as soon as I could get my hands on it.

This was a bucket list concert.

It was everything I ever wanted it to be.

And I am so very, very happy that thousands of other Garth Brooks fans get to feel those exact same things when they see this show.

Please enjoy the photos we did take… and the video clips.

And give some love to Brett Kissel and Karyn Rochelle for doing a great job warming up the First Ontario Centre crowd.

Author profile

Joshua Murray

creator of content, daddy blogger, writer, coffee drinker, fan of the Batman. proud mo bro. prouder dad.