Garth Brooks photo by Mark Tucker, courtesy of Pearl Records.
March 19, 2009 — In what’s starting to become a mini-routine, Garth Brooks gave an exclusive concert Sunday in Calgary, Alberta, for members of the NHL’s Calgary Flames.
Garth appeared at the Palomino Smokehouse in a show that was so private the venue’s owner didn’t even know he was coming. Fred Konopaki had been told the place was being booked for a private party for the Flames and that they would have "a guy coming in to play guitar at some point," Fred told The Calgary Herald. When they finally told him who the guitar player would be, he scoffed: "I said, 'Garth Brooks? C'mon!'"
Garth presents team-only private shows for NHL clubs that have 100 percent participation in his Teammates For Kids Foundation program in which players donate money to children’s charities when they succeed on the ice. He actually gave a similar show earlier in the day for members of the Phoenix Coyotes, and he did the same thing last month for the Nashville Predators and Detroit Red Wings.
Garth played plenty of his own songs in Calgary, but — as is his custom in acoustic shows — he also covered some of the artists that influenced him, including the Beatles, Jim Croce, James Taylor, Chris LeDoux, George Strait and George Jones.
Garth’s next gig will have a much larger audience: He appears Thursday on "Late Night With Jay Leno," where Barack Obama becomes the first sitting president to visit the talk show’s couch.
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