Garth mania

Garth Brooks rocks at the first of five shows

You'd think it was The Beatles at Shea Stadium.

But hey, 16,000 Garth Brooks fans can't be wrong.

And, truth be told, Brooks is one rootin', tootin', heck of an entertainer.

"It's the best show ever," said Katie Ellis, a State College resident who visited the Bryce Jordan Center last night for the first of five consecutive concerts country music performer Garth Brooks will play.

At a press conference before the show, Brooks explained that the State College dates are the longest consecutive run he's had at an arena the size of the center. In addition, the concerts, for which a total of about 71,000 tickets were sold, mark the first time the year-and-four-month-old center has kept an artist for multiple dates.

Like a flying saucer descending to earth, a giant ceiling structure emanating thick smoke lowered to the stage. The outer structure then rose back up, and through the fog and haze, a piano rose from nowhere with Brooks standing beside it.

After a subtle beginning with Brooks accompanied only by his pianist, the band then erupted into popular hits such as "The Beaches of Cheyenne," "Two of a Kind Workin' on a Full House" and "Shameless."

Within a few songs, Brooks and company were running rampantly around the stage like a bunch of children unable to believe how much fun they were having. Even the fiddle player was able to run with the rest of the band without impeding his performance.

The rabid fans grew ever more fanatical as the show went on, erupting with passion as Brooks sang the gospel chant, "We Shall Be Free."

Brooks then went into a sequence of slower, folksier ballads such as "Unanswered Prayers," to which the audience sang along, not missing a word or a beat.

Dylan Layser, who traveled from Newmanstown, Pa. to see the show, said he anticipated the best part being the crowd favorite, "The Fever."

At the press conference, Brooks explained how essential audience participation is to his shows.

"We encourage people to get up because we can't do it without the people," Brooks said. "Our show is as flat as a pancake without the crowd."

Brooks spoke about some of the problems popular artists face such as ticket scalping, used CD sales and style mimicry.

"If you're looking for a reason to bring capital punishment back in, I think (scalping) is as good as any," he said.

Brooks explained that the music business isn't as lucrative as people think, and issues like these need to be dealt with.

"The thing I absolutely abhor in this business are imitators," Brooks said.

The anti-used CD store crusade, Brooks said, is for the benefit of songwriters who don't profit from the "mom 'n' pop shop" music industry.

If an independent record store is getting advertising money from a record label, Brooks said, he wants some of the profits from used CD exchange to come back, even if it is just a small charge added on.

"I don't condemn the people buying them," he said.