Five minutes before Garth Brooks takes to the stage at Hyde Park, a booming American voice comes over the PA to tell the crowd this is the largest show in BST history – a total sell-out, with extra tickets added. And when Brooks appears, he looks both astonished and delighted.
Last time he was in London, in 1994 and at the peak of his stardom, he played one night at Wembley Arena, and the change in scale seems to shock him. When he performs Unanswered Prayers solo and the crowd sing it for him, he starts to cry – not sparkling, joyful showbiz tears, for his face does momentarily crumple like someone truly overcome.
Doubtless country’s UK rise has brought some people here, but not many. The crowd is a generation older than for most of the country stars who visit London, and Brooks has not put his catalogue on the streaming services (his last album was released in an exclusive deal with Bass Pro Shops, the US fishing chain). Everyone here is here on purpose.
His vulnerability must be part of his appeal: Brooks is a portly, middle-aged man in Wranglers so new you can read the label on the big screen, and they fit him just as well as cheap jeans always fit portly, middle-aged men. When he opens with Rodeo, all storm-crossed and macho, it feels very at odds with his manner, which is gentle, almost effeminate. You cannot help but be charmed.
The first hour of the show is perfectly judged: it stays within the boundaries of country music, but right up at the fence line. There’s the Tex-Mex lilt of Two Piña Coladas, the weeping pedal steel and fiddles of The Beaches of Cheyenne, while That Summer feels like a cousin of Springsteen’s Thunder Road. A cover of Night Moves, for a front-row fan with a sign, is wonderful, but overestimates British familiarity with Bob Seger.
The set sags at the end, with too many band introductions and cameos – does anyone need to hear a version of Shout performed by Brooks’s longtime backing vocalist? – but by then he’s done all the heavy lifting, and no one goes home wishing they’d stayed in to watch the England game instead.
