The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Garth Brooks can’t wait to christen new stadium
Garth Brooks and Trisha Yearwood will christen Mercedes-Benz Stadium, new home of the Atlanta Falcons, as the first entertainers to perform in concert there.
“It’s very flattering. It’s very humbling. They had their pick of everybody,” Brooks said during a conference call interview last week. Talks have been in the works for months, and they’re beyond impressed with the facility and everyone involved with concert production.
“We’ve been down there three times,” he said. “The lighting crew, video crew … treated us like royalty.”
The new facility will seat 75,000 but hardly feels like it, he said.
“Stadium shows are a little bit harder work. This one is going to be pure joy. There’s not a bad seat in the house,” he said. “I don’t know how they did it. It does not feel like a 75,000-seat stadium. It’s built that well, that tight. ”
We didn’t have a lot of time to talk, but there was time enough for Brooks to spill a little intel. Instead of eating at restaurants or traveling with a chef on the road, Team BrooksYearwood employs a local caterer at different tour stops.
There’s one big condition: “The only way they get the gig is they have to cook out of her cookbook,” Brooks said. “It’s like having a home-cooked meal without having to do the dishes.”
Brooks is apparently way into carbs (his Father’s Day feast involved lasagna and mashed potatoes), and he confessed he’s met some folks who prepare his wife’s recipes pretty well.
“If you repeat this to Trisha, I’ll deny it: they get really close,” he said with a chuckle.
We interviewed Yearwood about “Home Cooking with Trisha Yearwood” when it came out several years ago.
“We try to have a homecooked meal at least two or three times a week,” she told us at the time. “We laugh a lot. The stories get told. It’s that family connection you lose when you skip that.”
That book, written with her mother, Gwen Yearwood, and sister, Beth Yearwood Bernard, followed her first book, “Georgia Cooking in an Oklahoma Kitchen.” Many of the recipes have personal ties, such as Grandma Yearwood’s Coconut Cake or Garth’s Breakfast Bowl, named in her husband’s honor.
Trisha Yearwood is a Georgia native, hailing from Monticello, making the upcoming Atlanta gig all the more special.
“(Trisha) is so excited about coming home,” Brooks said. “Half that stadium is going to be her family,” he said. “She’s going to make that stadium feel like family. I’m going to be really interested to see if she makes it through without crying.”
The performance will be at 7:30 p.m. Oct. 12. Tickets are on sale Friday with a pre-sale underway now. See buzz.blog.ajc. com/2017/06/23/garth-trisha for a link to buy tickets, as well as an audio clip of our interview.
Star sighting
Danai Gurira, who plays the fearless Michonne on locally filmed “The Walking Dead” and will appear in Marvel’s upcoming “Black Panther” next year, was at Synchronicity Theatre in Midtown on Sunday for the closing-night performance of her acclaimed play “Eclipsed.”
The play has been nominated for six Tony Awards. The plot: “Caught in the grips of civil war, five Liberian women struggle to negotiate power, protection and peace in this stunning tale of hope and resilience.”
Gurira, who played Afeni Shakur in the locally filmed Tupac Shakur biopic “All Eyez on Me,” will reprise her “Black Panther” role as Okoye in the two “Avengers” movies filming here this summer.