Concerts can entail more than just warming up a seat and hearing music. They can also be deeply transformative experiences on an almost gritty, gut level. A concert can resonate in the heart, mind, and soul long after the last note fades. For Ward Davis, it was that way when he went to see Garth Brooks recently in Denver. Brooks, a towering figure in the country genre, is on his Blame It All on My Roots tour. At 64, the singer has lost none of his stadium-shaking power. For Davis, who has written songs for some of the best in the business, being there to see Garth Brooks on Sunday was sublime. It was almost beyond his ability to convey.
Videos by Wide Open Country
Davis Penned a Massive Post About Brooks
Ward Davis had a meaningful connection with the music of Garth Brooks as a kid. As he wrote on
Facebook, he was not a hip dude back then. It's rough to be feeling like you are always planted on the sidelines and everyone else is surging forward without you.But one day, Davis writes, he sat down at a piano in front of his peers. On a whim, he banged out a Garth Brooks song called "The Dance." His schoolmates were mesmerized. It marked a major turning point for Ward Davis.
"That was the moment," he noted. "That was the song." Life would never be the same again.
"I Wept for Most of the Show"
Ward Davis was emotionally swept off his feet by that Garth Brooks concert. The tears came and his feelings soared to the sky like fireworks. He wrote in part, "Honestly, I wept for most of the show...That little mop-topped kid in Arkansas was standing right beside me, holding onto me as much as I was holding on to him. All those songs and all those memories and all the purpose behind what I have spent my whole life doing started with a song...."
Davis kept writing even more. It almost seems like he was trying to wring out the meaning of that epic night just to better savor it. "I felt my whole life flash before my eyes. There was an energy in that room that made my heart maybe the fullest it's ever been, and I was so damn grateful to hear and see and witness the reason I started down this road to begin with. Maybe you understand what that means now, maybe you don't. But that's as well as I can put it."
Garth Brooks Responded
The singer was genuinely touched by what Ward Davis wrote. In fact, he wrote a lengthy message of his own on his web site. Titled "An Open Letter: Something Is Happening...," Garth Brooks poured out his own complex emotions that have been galvanized by this tour.
He wrote in part, "Denver was a high I have never seen. Something is happening on this tour. I don't know if it's the realness of the music ... no loops, no prerecorded stuff, just honest, live in all its blemishes ... raw, real music...Someone needs to tell us we are good people. Someone needs to tell us when we unite in song that 'one voice' is what I think love would sound like — a commonality ... of empathy and relating to one another. Anyway, whatever it is, SOMETHING is happening, and I am damn lucky and very blessed to be part of it. I thank God and you for it...love, g"
At a time when politics and partisanship have seeped into our culture like toxins, what these two men have expressed is truly uplifting.
