Brooks puts on a longer show as series winds down

TIMOTHY FINN TFINN@KCSTAR.COM
http://www.kansascity.com/entertainment/music/story/357193.html

As if it were a Friday or the second night of a three-day weekend, Garth Brooks made Sunday’s show one of his longest of the week: way more than two hours and about two dozen songs.
He drew from the same material but he shuffled things considerably; he also added a big favorite, “Longneck Bottle,” for only the second time this week. Also for the second time, he gave somebody in the front rows one of his acoustic guitars. Hey, if you’re way up front, say it’s your birthday, even if it isn’t.

The show got political — locally political — as he introduced his bass player, Mark Greenwood.

The Topeka native has generated a raucous response all week, as if he were genuinely a hometown boy.

This evening, however, he shed his button-down shirt and strutted around in a T-shirt that announced his academic allegiance and separated him from half the audience: He’s a Jayhawk alum.

That ignited some serious cheering and visceral booing throughout the arena. Oddly enough, Brooks had little to say about it, though KU had thumped his alma mater, Oklahoma State, in football the night before. He did tell a joke that aimed to insult Greenwood and KU grads, but it was a little too long and not that funny.

The show was both similar to and different from the six shows that preceded it. For the past several nights, he has been altering the setlist noticeably from the evening before, which no doubt keeps it fresher for him and his band (and anyone else who has been there every night). He’s played “Shameless” two nights in a row, which gets a huge response.

But the order of the songs seem to matter little to this crowd, which was loud and boisterous, even on a Sunday night. Even during lesser-known cuts, like the very nice solo-acoustic rendition of “Wolves,” he had nearly everyone’s rapt attention. “These two hours is what I miss,” he said, meaning he still loves to perform but he can do without the touring. He’s got two more performances left here; then this nine-day weekend is over.