Garth Brooks, the country legend who can still sell out stadiums decades after his ’90s career peak, will be sticking to dive-bar shows for the foreseeable future. According to Billboard, Brooks and team feel COVID safety and vaccination protocols will be easier to follow in smaller venues. On Brooks’s Facebook show Inside Studio G, Brooks said “Stadiums are officially out for this year.†Dive bars are in, because in Brooks’s words, “dive bars are vaccinated.†His first dive show will be October 11 in Oklahoma City, and tickets can only be won on OKC’s own radio station, 93.3 Jake FM.
Brooks had been in the middle of his 2019 stadium tour when COVID shut everything down. He was able to fulfill some of those dates in 2021, before deciding it was time to pull the plug yet again. The news comes shortly after Eric Clapton did a take-backsies on his vow to never play shows where there are vaccine mandates. Meanwhile Brooks joins comedian Patton Oswalt as artists who will only perform at venues that require vaccination or proof of a negative COVID test.