It must be fun to be Steve Wynn. He’s the guy who owns all of those casinos in Vegas, and who has so much clout he can get Garth Brooks to come out of retirement to play at his resort. So imagine you live in Sun Valley Idaho and you’re brainstorming about a fundraiser for the local symphony. People are throwing out various ideas. Steve Wynn is there because he lives in Idaho part time. And he says, “How about we bring Garth Brooks to town and he does two shows, one with just his guitar, and the other with the symphony backing him up?” Ummm, do we need to take a vote on this? Probably not. So that’s what Garth will be doing this Summer, on August 1. No word yet on how to get tickets, but I’ll keep looking into it.

He presented the president with his second Grammy award for spoken word, and received an award himself for his work advocating for musicians’ rights.  This video is pretty cool and reminds you what a gentleman Mr. Brooks is…

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But why?  Doesn’t Garth Brooks have a private plane?  Well here’s the deal:  They’re taking THEIR very own greyhound dog, Emmet, whose show name is “Gaia Woodland Waltz”  to the big kahuna of dog shows, the Westminster, in New York City at Madison Square Garden.  Garth and Trisha are co-owners of this three year-old showstopper, so they’ll be there in NYC Monday and Tuesday cheering him on from the sidelines.  You can catch the Westminster dog show on Animal Planet both nights.

Check out how Garth Brooks pulled of being a dad and being a headliner at Wynn Las Vegas during his first weekend back at work: 

Friday, he flies in the jet Steve Wynn gave him from Oklahoma to Vegas, does the first show, then hops back home that night to pick up the kids and head to Memphis.  Saturday morning, one of his daughters had a few soccer games, which they all watched.  Then Garth flew back to Vegas for the Saturday night shows, flying back to Memphis Saturday night for Sunday morning’s soccer game.  Finally, he flew back to Vegas for the Sunday show and then called it a weekend.  That’s quite a bit of jet fuel!

Lucky people at the Wynn Las Vegas will see Garth’s first official show of his unretirement.  This weekend and 15 weekends per year, he’ll do a show on Friday, 2 on Saturday, and another show on Sunday.  He says it’ll be an all accoustic show with occasional visits from stars like his wife Trisha Yearwood and others.  Reviews will roll in over the weekend and I’ll be sure to share them with you.  Meanwhile, if you want to find out more about going, click here.

The internet is such a magical place…so much information swirling around!  Most of it is not true, of course, but every once in a while something is correct.  For weeks — months, even — online gossips have been suggesting that Garth Brooks would take up permanent residence in Las Vegas, thereby coming out of retirement to do regular shows at the theater that Steve Wynn built for the late Danny Gans.  Today, Garth has a big “secret” press conference at 1 pm, but the jig is up:  He is definitely going to make the big Vegas announcement today.  That’s right, GARTH IS UNRETIRING!!!!!  So I guess the internet is good for something.  To watch the press conference, go here at 1 o’clock today.