Garth Brooks Explains It All

The country singer held a press conference with wife Trisha Yearwood on the afternoon before he started a three-night, four-show stand at the Smoothie King Center. Here's the footage.

Garth Brooks doesn't hide the facts. By his admission, he's 53 and 250 pounds--"not my touring weight," he says--but those are the only stats on his first tour since 2001 that aren't clear markers of success. Each stop on the tour that started in Chicago last September has sold out multiple shows--12 in Chicago, and four last weekend at the Smoothie King Center in New Orleans.

I covered Brooks' pre-show press conference for The New Orleans Advocate, which was itself an interesting performance. He's too successful for his underdog persona to feel entirely real, but he's too good at it not be entertained by it at all. Similarly, the press conference had a clearly theatrical component as he referred to wife and tourmate Trisha Yearwood as "Miss Yearwood" and she called him "The Cowboy," but the talent that still allows Brooks to convincingly sell himself as the underdog also allows him to seem like a very lucky middle-aged Oklahoma boy in interviews.