“The Plus One is the music,” Brooks said before opening night

Garth Brooks is set to open his Garth Brooks/Plus One residency at The Colosseum at Caesars Palace in Las Vegas tonight (Thurs May 18th). Fans have been anxiously awaiting the run of two year shows since it was announced in late 2022. Tickets sold out instantly with shows being promised for 2024.

At a press conference this afternoon at Caesars Palace, TMU reporter Matt Bailey asked Brooks how this residency has evolved since it was announced in 2022.

“How this is different than the [2009 One Man] Wynn [Las Vegas] show is the main thing for me. I don’t want to come out do the Wynn show. I love the Wynn show, but the Wynn show was the Wynn show. I’ll tell the people tonight that I just can’t do the Wynn show all over again,” he says. “The way you do it is bring the band because the one thing that was missing from the Wynn show was the muscle.”

He also expressed his desire to play with the sound quality of the space, intimating that some numbers may feature only one or two of his bandmates.

“When you sit here and you sing and everybody gets to come in and you’re here, that’s great, but when you wanna play ‘Callin’ Baton Rouge,’ and everybody loves the fiddle on that, let’s tear it up. It’s like a real expensive car. You get it as quiet as you want, as smooth as you want. When you step on that gas, it’s going to get loud and it’s going to get heavy. And that’s what we want. I wanna try and take you through the roof. Then, I want to try and drive you through the floor and then I want to try to take you through the roof again. I want you worn out when you get out here. It’s only fair because I’m worn out when I get out of here, so I want us all to feel the same.”

Garth Brooks/Plus One runs through December. Eighteen dates for 2024 dates have been announced, with Verified Fans who were not given a to access tickets for the sold out 2023 run getting first priority for next year. Ticket on sale for the new dates will occur later this month.

Brooks also detailed more plans for the forthcoming Killer Live, what he meant when he recently teased a stadium show before the end of the year, plus more. Check out The Music Universe’s exclusive one-on-one with the Country Music Hall of Famer in an upcoming episode of The Music Universe Podcast.

Matt Bailey contributed to this report.