Passionate, emotional Garth Brooks readies for NYC return

NEW YORK – Garth Brooks is full of tears – tears of joy – as he prepares to return to New York City after two decades and he discusses emotional topics such as family and music.

The country star, during a press conference Tuesday at Yankee Stadium where he’ll perform on July 9, talked about connecting with his feverish fans, who he referred to as “his boss.”

“ ’Cause all they wanted to do, man, was take two seconds of your time to tell you what ‘The Dance’ meant to them, what it meant to their son that they lost or how your music might have got them through the Gulf War,” the singer said, tearing up.

Brooks, 54, also grew emotional when he spoke about discovering music on the radio. Instead of releasing his music digitally on iTunes or Spotify, Brooks launched GhostTunes to house his music online.

“I always want radio to be Santa Claus, I always want them to bring it. …I’ll remember the rest of my life where I was when Michael Jackson died ’cause it came from that radio,” he said. “Those are gifts from radio or times you remember in your life marked by radio, so I’m a big radio fan.”

Brooks said after the press conference that it’s easy to cry when he’s talking about passionate subjects like his daughters, wife or music.

“People ask unfair questions about your kids and you’re in that place where you’re sending them off to college so you’re touchy anyways,” the father of three daughters told the Associated Press. “Or they talk about your musical heroes or what music means to you. Man, if you’re going to talk about what music means to me it’s gonna get really sappy really quick because that’s my breath in and breath out.”

Brooks, who returned to music with an album of originals in 2014 after a 13-year break, has been riding high on his world tour, which recently sold its 4 millionth ticket. The tour will come to Yankee Stadium in the Bronx in July, his first return to NYC since 1997 when he performed in Central Park.

“It wasn’t my brainchild. The Yankees actually came to us,” Brooks said in the interview. “I said, ‘Well what a way to return to New York after Central Park.’ So this makes sense. If you’re going to do anything big, you do it in this city.”

Brooks held a Yankees hat in his hand and swapped his black cap for it to take a few photos at the event.

Tickets for his NYC show, roughly $80, go on sale Friday. His wife, country singer Trisha Yearwood, will also perform. Billy Joel joined Brooks at his NYC show in 19 years ago, and Brooks said other guests may join him this year.

“Billy was sweet enough to do Central Park. Central Park was Central Park, you want Yankee Stadium to be Yankee Stadium. So right now the drawing board is clear and clean,” he said.