Whereas Toby Keith seems like every drunk Oklahoma dad, Garth Brooks seems like every great Oklahoma dad, if you can overlook the fact that he divorced his first wife, moved out of state to Nashville and, for a short-time, assumed the alter-ego of an Australian rock star for a movie that never happened and an album that did.
But let’s go ahead and add “keeping America safe” to that list, because the Tulsa-born and Yukon-bred country star has just canceled the remaining six dates of his high-grossing stadium tour in an effort to curb this latest nationwide outbreak, with other dates to be justified on a case-by-case basis. From KOCO:
Brooks had said weeks ago that he would be reassessing the tour in light of the surge in cases. Tickets will be refunded for shows scheduled in Cincinnati; Charlotte, North Carolina; Baltimore; Foxborough, Massachusetts, and Nashville, Tennessee. He had also planned to play in Seattle but declined to put tickets on sale.
“In July, I sincerely thought the pandemic was falling behind us," Brooks said in a statement on Wednesday. “Now, watching this new wave, I realize we are still in the fight and I must do my part.”
I’m sure that many of Garth’s fans are mostly upset because they won’t see their former hero flying above them while tethered to ropes hanging from the ceiling as he belts out “And they call it rodeee-ooooooooo!” in a time of sickness and death. Isn't that a line from the Book of Revelation?
But, then again, thank the sterile Lord for that other Okie icon that's on their anti-vax side, Carrie Underwood and her support of conservative decepticon Matt Walsh and his love of dead children...
Maybe if America can get their collective shit together—I seriously doubt it, but maybe—Brooks and various other country stars he inspired with this act of sonic selflessness can go on the road as the Monsters of Immunization, touring the country and playing their biggest hits—no new songs!—to an audience of vaccinated music-fans that peacefully waited for their next chance to be with all their friends, preferably in low places.
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