Garth Brooks opened his Blame It All On My Roots tour in Indianapolis’s Gainbridge Fieldhouse on Thursday (Aug. 20) night, taking fans back to his ‘90s heyday.

Announced in July, the trek is a recreation of Brooks’ 1996-1998 massive world tour, down to the set design, lighting rig and famous spinning drum pod. On opening night, he even kept to a retro setlist, playing no songs that came out after 1997.

Brooks took the stage slightly before 8 p.m. A grand piano came up through the floor with pianist Dave Gant playing the opening strains of, appropriately enough, “The Old Stuff,” as Brooks then rose up through the grand piano, singing the first lines from the 1995’s Fresh Horses cut: “Whoa, I said a little prayer tonight/’fore I came on stage/as I came walking past the drivers and the locals on the union wage.”

In addition to Gant, Brooks’ band includes many players who have been playing with him since at least the ‘90s, including drummer Mike Palmer, fiddle player Jimmy Mattingly, pedal steel guitarist Bruce Bouton bassist Mark Greenwood. The only facet not replicated from the ‘90s tours was the colorful Mo Betta western wear shirts Brooks sported each night: for opening night, he wore a simple black shirt with his blue Wranglers.

Brooks took to social media to thank the audience shortly after the show’s end, posting on Instagram and X, “THIS is how you start a tour!!! INDY… night one of four, and you absolutely blew the roof off this place! If this is the beginning, we’re in for one hell of a ride!!!!!!! love, g”

Brooks, who is recording each night’s performance for later release, has three more shows in Indianapolis before heading to Denver’s Ball Arenas (Sept. 4-6), Rosemont, Illinois’s Allstate Arena (Sept. 10-13) and Washington, D.C.’s Capital One Arena (Sept. 18-19). As he has throughout his career, Brooks is announcing one tour stop at a time. All tickets are priced at $154.

Below is the set list from the opening night.

Stella Lefty emerged seemingly out of nowhere this year with the track “Boston,” a toe-tapping, romantic country-pop smash that interpolates Noah Kahan’s “Stick Season.” The tune, one of the summer’s biggest hits, reached No. 3 on both Billboard’s Hot 100 and Country Songs charts following “Thinking ‘Bout You,” her only other previous charting song, which peaked at 50 on Country Songs.

Bolstered by the success of “Boston,” Lefty’s EP, Is This Heaven, debuted at No. 9 on the Top Country Albums in late May, making her the first woman to land in the top 10 with her initial release this year. All six songs from that effort are on Long Way Home, her first full-length album out Friday (Aug. 21) via Atlantic Outpost.

The album, helmed by British producer Joe Reeves (Lil Durk, Morgan Wallen, Jelly Roll), is extremely likeable. Reeves’ low-key production perfectly complements Lefty’s sweet, unadorned vocals, creating what feels like an uncomplicated, authentic effort and a solid introduction to a formidable, developing talent. Her voice is wrapped around primarily acoustic instrumentation, especially banjo and mandolin, that adds to the album’s overall pleasing blend of country, folk and pop.

Lefty, 24, co-wrote the album’s 14 songs and the subject matter is solidly Gen Z. All but one of the tunes deals with romance and trying to figure out the complexities of what happens after boy meets girl. Many of the encounters start in a bar, because that’s where 20-somethings are hanging out. This leads to a similarity in theme that could wear thin when the album is listened to from start to finish — as does the mid-tempo pace of most of the songs — so the songs shine better when listened to individually.  

Below Billboard ranks all 14 songs. (Just assume the tunes are mid-tempo unless described otherwise.)

With Hazel Eyes, Sam Smith charts a fresh, emboldened emotional hinterland. Across the London-born singer’s four previous albums, the question of who exists beyond that distinct, aching, soulful voice has loomed large.

Smith initially built a career, after all, on the strange alchemy of writing about heartbreak from largely hypothetical pain; they penned 2014 global smash In the Lonely Hour before ever experiencing a breakup. The albums that followed gradually filled in the blanks – desire, growth, personal identity, sex – though with the sense of an artist discovering themselves and testing out what they want to say to the world. In the process, they have scooped billions of streams, five Grammy Awards and seven Billboard Hot 100 top 10 hits — and with 2023 Kim Petras collab “Unholy,” became the first openly nonbinary artist to top the chart.

At times, Smith’s fifth full-length effort gets closer than ever to answering that question. The dual muses across Hazel Eyes become figures in a wider romantic mythology; even when their partner, the (hazel-eyed) fashion designer Christian Cowan, or their newly adopted home of New York City enters the frame, lyrically, the 34-year-old avoids rendering them literally to instead focus on capturing the feelings they inspire.

Until now, Smith “didn’t understand what my heart was for,” they tell us on the title track; “To Be Free,” the record’s searching and graceful closer, reckons with harbouring shame and maintaining a public persona, only to realise that patient, requited love can offer an escape from performing different versions of the self.

The latter track lent its name to Smith’s U.S. concert hall residencies last year, which included 24 sold-out nights at Warsaw in Brooklyn and will head to Manchester’s Albert Hall (Sept. 3-4) and the London Coliseum (Sept. 8-19) for a further 10 shows next month. In the states, Smith was joined onstage by a plethora of pop luminaries, including Ed Sheeran, Hozier and Sienna Spiro. Yet for all its starry cameos, the run featured minimal stage production in order to zone in and illuminate the sheer force of Smith’s vocal, with little to distract from it after the pop-baiting campaigns of their past two records (2020’s fairly tepid Love Goes, and its expressive if uneven 2023 follow-up Gloria).

While it was enlivening to hear Smith stretch beyond the soft-focus piano pop balladry of their earlier work, particularly on the slinky, trop-pop-influenced chart hit “How Do You Sleep?” or the disco-fied “I’m Not Here to Make Friends,” Hazel Eyes finds them returning  familiar textures with a newly exploratory ear. Its sound is pared back to the hallmarks of their earlier output but within that palette, Smith makes room for subtle surprises, weaving flourishes of country guitar into “When He’s Gone” and teaming up with seminal Canadian indie songwriter Feist on multiple tracks, whose influence feels particularly pertinent throughout the emphatic storytelling of “Moondance.”

As Hazel Eyes adds another layer to Smith’s story, its title itself an ode to Cowan and the pair’s recent engagement, here’s every track from the new record ranked.