Garth Brooks: Matinee Shows Deal Possible

Hot Press can confirm that discussions on the Garth Brooks gig controversy have taken a new turn.

Suggestions that additional matinee shows might added on the Saturday and the Sunday of the approved three day run have been discussed as a possible compromise between Dublin City Council and Peter Aiken of Aiken Promotions, in order to let the five gigs go ahead. While the council has apparently approved the plan, there is no indication yet that this will be acceptable to the country singer himself, who will have the final say.

“Everybody knows that it is a huge ask of Garth Brooks,” one source said. “It is very difficult for any artist to do five shows within three days and so it would be wrong to be too upbeat or optimistic about it just yet. It just might not work.”

The apparent willingness of Dublin City Council to compromise on the issue suggests a radical change of heart on their part, in response to the huge wave of public support for the holding of the concerts.

“Everyone, right up to the very top, is now focussed on trying to find a formula which will allow the gigs to go ahead,” the source added. “People are wondering ‘how did we get ourselves into this mess’? So that at least is encouraging. But in the end Garth Brooks is the only one who can green light any potential solution that varies the timing or the dates of any of the concerts.”

In addition to the singer’s approval, the plan will hinge on logistical issues – in particular, would it be possible to get 80,000 people in and out of Croke Park within the time available? But the change of heart at least gives the hope to ticket holders that they may yet be part of a huge celebration of country music in Dublin later this month.

Over the course of the past two days, attempts to find a solution to the debacle have intensified hugely. A number of local residents have withdrawn their objections to the gigs and, in the High Court earlier today, local resident Brian Duff also withdrew his legal action against the concerts.

In another remarkable development, the Assistant Garda Commissioner John Twomey told the Oireachtas Public Accounts Committee that gardaí were satisfied that the event could run safely over five days – in effect giving the gig the green light from a different arm of the State. Meanwhile, a team of Gardai has been interviewing people whose names were on the list of objectors, in order to establish the full extent of the forgery within the 300+ objections which were lodged. The existence of forgeries could be deemed to have tainted the entire process, which led to the initial refusal by Dublin City Council to licence more than three gigs.

This, in other words, is a story which may have a few interesting new and unexpected twists – because if there were forgeries, then clearly someone was responsible.

The new leader of the Labour Party, Joan Burton, and local TD and Minister of State Joe Costello had earlier proposed that three of the concerts might go ahead with two more to follow later in the year, at the end of the world tour announced by Garth Brooks at his press conference today.