Garth Brooks has been a little quicker about naming thew fourth locale on his new tour: The country icon will travel from Jacksonville to Lexington, KY's Rupp Arena (as reported by Rolling Stone), home to the town's beloved Kentucky Wildcats basketball team.
For now the dates listed are a "minimal" two: October 31 and November 1, but we all know where this is going. Brooks has savvily played the markets in the previous three cities he's visiting so far, adding and selling out shows until he can't anymore. It's resulted in an 11-show run in Chicago, seven shows in Atlanta and "only" six shows in Jacksonville. Lexington is sure to bring a few more night's worth of fans as the city will serve as a collection pool for fans from nearby Louisville and Cincinnati, two other country music-friendly markets.
Fans in Kentucky could complain, humorously, that the current setup is far too similar to the last time they saw Brooks in their home state. The last time the country star swung by was during 1998, where he played three shows at Rupp Arena with Trisha Yearwood as the opener. Yearwood, who would get engaged to Brooks in 2005, is also opening all the dates on the new tour.
The new location announcement somewhat throws a wrench in trying to figure out where he'll head next for his fifth stop. Back-to-back stops in Atlanta and Jacksonville suggested he'd either come back up the East Coast or along the Gulf but now he can move in a number of directions from Lexington. He's got to get around to the big cities along the Atlantic eventually but we're not holding out breath. The dude clearly knows what he's doing and he's going to take his time doing it.
