Meet The New Boss ... Same As The Old Boss

The booking agents and talent buyers are putting 2019 in ink. Garth Brooks put out the worst-kept Music Row secret that a huge stadium tour was coming. In the Spring of 2019 Garth will unveil his new stadium tour. Ten to 12 cities a year for three years. The first two are St Louis and Glendale, AZ.

The Glendale stop is where the NFL Cardinals play nd Wrestlemania XXVI broke the attendance record with 72,219. The Rolling Stones did 42,000 or thereabouts. In St Louis the dome was the former home of the Rams; it can seat 70,000. (Garth sold 85,000 tickets for this weekend's Notre Dame show. (Note --41 degrees, windy and a 40% chance of rain for his Notre Dame show Saturday)

Rain or moonshine, Garth's show will be recorded for a CBS-TV special Sunday nght December 2nd. It will be a two-hour event at 8/7C. Don't I remember that Yankees Stadium show having bucketfulls of rain? He's an all-weather star.

So Mr. Brooks is going to take on America in 2019, 2020 and 2021, 10 cities a year. Never said if they will do multiple shows in a city, which Taylor Swift just did. It's going to be huge.

Garth wants to play in as many college stadiums as he can. The Notre Dame show is set up like ESPN College Gameday. Face painting, etc. He is from the event marketing school so this is going to be a well-planned exercise.

Who else is doing the stadium thing in 2019? Luke and Jason probably, Kenny usually and maybe The Stones. So fasten your big-ticket, big-event pants and hold on.

On the huge scale, too, is Stagecoach in the California desert. They picked Aldean, Bryan and Sam Hunt to be their 2019 headliners. The openers near the top include Luke Combs, Kane Brown, Old Dominion, Cole Swindell. All solid future headliners.

Loretta Lynn was a no-show for the CMT Artist of the Year show. The Hall of Famer got on Twitter and talked about her disappointment. Her health is fragile and the segment should have been taped in advance ... if she was able to be live, you throw it out ... Need some gray hair in those planning meetings.

Tim McGraw is seen in the last week throwing basketballs at Universal theme park, then a few days later wearing a big boot on his foot. Two stress fractures. Even Ironmen break.