Garth Brooks just launched a new tour - but if you walked into the arena without checking the calendar, you might have thought Bill Clinton was still president, Titanic was about to hit theaters and everyone was waiting for their dial-up internet to connect.
The country superstar kicked off his Blame It All On My Roots Tour Thursday night (Aug. 20) at Gainbridge Fieldhouse in Indianapolis, and the biggest surprise may have been what Brooks didn't perform: anything released after 1997.
According to Billboard, Brooks has recreated the massive 1996-98 world tour that helped cement him as one of country's biggest live performers. That means the old-school stage design is back, the lighting has gone retro and even the famous spinning drum pod has returned.
And Brooks apparently wasn't interested in giving fans a watered-down nostalgia show. He brought back several musicians who have been with him since the '90s, including drummer Mike Palmer, fiddle player Jimmy Mattingly, pedal steel guitarist Bruce Bouton, bassist Mark Greenwood and pianist Dave Gant.
Then came the entrance.
Gant began playing "The Old Stuff" on a grand piano that rose through the stage - before Brooks himself emerged through the piano to start singing the 1995 Fresh Horses track.
Talk about making your intentions clear.
From there, Brooks essentially locked the doors on the 21st century.
The setlist was packed with songs from his blockbuster years, including "Rodeo," "Papa Loved Mama," "The River," "The Thunder Rolls," "Unanswered Prayers," "That Summer," "Callin' Baton Rouge," "Ain't Goin' Down (Til the Sun Comes Up)," "Shameless," "Friends in Low Places," "The Dance" and "Standing Outside the Fire."
He also dipped into Sevens with "Two Piña Coladas" and "Belleau Wood," while covers included Keith Whitley's "Ten Feet Away" and the Isley Brothers classic "Shout."
Perhaps the most revealing moment came after the concert, when Brooks made it clear Indianapolis had delivered exactly the kind of reception he wanted.
"THIS is how you start a tour!!!" he wrote on social media, telling the Indianapolis crowd they had "absolutely blew the roof off this place" and predicting the tour was going to be "one hell of a ride."
There is another interesting twist: Brooks is recording every night's performance for a future release. So this elaborate trip back to his '90s glory days isn't necessarily disappearing once the arena lights come back on.
The Indianapolis opening is only the beginning. Brooks has three additional shows at Gainbridge Fieldhouse before taking the production to Denver, Rosemont, Illinois, and Washington, D.C. And in classic Garth fashion, he's revealing the itinerary one stop at a time, rather than announcing the entire tour upfront.
All tickets are priced at $154.
The real story here may be bigger than another superstar nostalgia tour. At 64, Brooks isn't trying to update the era that made him famous or squeeze newer material between the songs everyone came to hear. He's attempting to reconstruct the Garth Brooks concert experience at the height of Garthmania - musicians, staging, spectacle and songs included.
There was one conspicuous piece of '90s Garth that didn't return on opening night: those famously colorful Mo Betta Western shirts.
Brooks instead appeared in a simple black shirt and blue Wranglers.
Everything else?
Welcome back to 1997.
