Mixed Reviews Across Twitter for Garth Brooks Drive-in Concert

Last Saturday, people all over the country piled in their cars, plopped down $100, and pulled into a local parking lot to watch Garth Brooks in concert. The concert was set up like a drive-in movie theater. Cars were to be spaced out as they watched the country singer on giant video walls. It was estimated by multiple media outlets that it was viewed by over 350,000 nationwide.

However, some concert attendees were not very pleased with the show itself. A writer for the Charlotte Observer gave his review of the show. According to his experience, he was under the assumption the show he was set to watch would indeed be a live showing. Brooks' show did have opener Randall King perform, except it was just his music videos and not him actually performing the songs. King writes about how the show itself felt very one-sided. There was no interaction with the crowd because it's not like you'd be heard anyway if you did whoop and holler.

The video production of the show, he reported, seemed way too clean and not like a live venue. Well, there is a reason for that. Brooks even stated in other interviews that he, his band, and the entire staff were working tirelessly to make sure this first show of its kind would be absolutely performed for the fans. If you have ever seen Brooks in concert, you understand the man is a showman through and through. Knowing he would be in so many venues at once, it's understandable that he would want everything perfect. Sill, people began to get upset as they realized the show was indeed pre-recorded somewhere.

Did we get the wool pulled over our eyes thinking this show was live? Not really. When the ticket was purchased, the holder clearly could read the details about the show not being exactly live. If that doesn't calm your nerves a bit, perhaps this will. In order for Brooks to have been live with the multiple time zones across America, the show would have had to have started towards the middle of the day for some and later in the evening for others. The technology we have could have handled streaming the show, but each venue was set up differently. Some theaters, like in Lafayette, were built using local concert production in the middle of a parking lot. You would have needed a solid internet structure to be able to stream the show as it came down live. Heaven forbid the show had to buffer.

Brooks being pre-recorded was a safer bet. People got to experience a Brooks show for cheaper than a truly live show, it got people safely out of the house, and it brought in some business to local areas that perhaps have been struggling.