Garth Brooks Returns to Arenas With the Drum Pod and a Deep Catalog Setlist

Garth Brooks’s first arena run in years opened this week with a staging choice that felt pointedly retrospective. At Gainbridge Fieldhouse in Indianapolis, the first two dates of his 2026 “Blame It All On My Roots” tour sold out and played in the round beneath a circular LED rig called “the halo.” The production also restored the Drum Pod, the elevated riser that became a signature of Brooks’s 1990s arena shows.

The setlists mirrored that backward glance. Brooks opened both nights with “The Old Stuff,” a song he hadn’t performed live since 2020, then moved through a string of 1990s hits including “Rodeo,” “The Thunder Rolls,” “Unanswered Prayers,” and “Friends in Low Places.” Night one went further back: “We Bury the Hatchet” had not been played live since 1992, and Brooks brought out Robert Bailey for a cover of The Isley Brothers’ “Shout.” The encore included solo renditions of Keith Whitley’s “Ten Feet Away” and “The Red Strokes.”

Night two swapped in different material, including covers of George Strait’s “Troubadour,” Bob Seger’s “Turn the Page,” and Billy Joel’s “Piano Man.” The tour is being filmed for a planned live project called Killer Live.

After two more Indianapolis shows, including a Sunday matinee, the tour moves to Denver’s Ball Arena in September, then Chicago’s Allstate Arena and Washington, DC’s Capital One Arena.