What Rodeo Houston Taught Garth Brooks
Garth Brooks will headline Rodeo Houston on Sunday night (March 18), and he's doing it kind of unplugged.
In 1991, Brooks played his very first Rodeo Houston show. And the show in Houston was the first time Brooks ever played a show wirelessly, allowing him to walk out into the crowd and not be tethered to the stage all night. He learned at that show that wireless was so much better than wired. His hit "Rodeo" was also released in 1991.
“You’re not used to this as an entertainer, but they’ll stick you out in the middle of this arena floor. So, we decided to all do wireless that day," Brooks said during his recent Inside Studio G Facebook video.
"We got out in the dirt, went into the crowd…and it was fun. From that day forward,” he said. “We tried it without wireless for another club or two and said, ‘You know what? We’re just gonna go wireless forever.’”
What he loves about playing Houston, he added, is making the bigger places feel small. "And that's what I love about Houston. They have a new stage they're showing off, and they were doing some Texas bragging," he laughed, "and they have all the right in the world to brag. This stage is cool. They spent the money in the right places."
Brooks not only will close the Houston Livestock Show and Rodeo on Sunday, but he also opened the annual concert extravaganza three weeks ago.