After going relatively quiet on social media after the holidays, Garth Brooks is back, and he has news. Big, big news.
During a press conference on Monday (Jan. 18), Brooks shared that he will be performing as part of the swearing-in ceremony at the U.S. Capitol on Wednesday (Jan. 20). Brooks, Lady Gaga and Jennifer Lopez will all be there at President-elect Joe Biden’s inauguration.
“This is an honor for me to get to serve,” Brooks said as he thanked the Biden administration, and especially Dr. Jill Biden — the future First Lady of the United States — for extending the invitation.
“There’s a common theme in every presidential election: new beginnings, new starts, we’re all together in this one. But truly I think of the word ’unity,’ the word ’love,’ the words that ’we belong to each other.’ It’s going to take all of us,” he said, “and what I want for all of us to do is listen. These people that are screaming loud? Take the time to listen. If you don’t listen, you’re turning deaf ears on a voice of America. So I think we listen to all of us, and then we make the best decision we can.
“We’re more divided than ever, so the bridge that brings us together is that reaching across and loving one another, because that’s what’s going to get us through probably the most divided times we’ve had. I want the divided times to be behind us. As long as you have people like the Bidens who are hellbent on making things good, no matter what it costs us as far as the struggles and the work that you have to put in, they’re for that. And that makes me feel good, because I want to spend the next 10 years of my life not divided,” he added. “I am so tired of being divided. We all want to get back together. It’s a beautiful thing.”
Brooks said he’d be doing more of the broken-down, bare-bones, acoustic style show so that the music can come through and speak. “My job is pretty simple. My job is when they point to me, I do what I was what I was put down here on this earth to do. And that’s sing music, in a celebration, on an honorable day, in this country where the new President takes over. It’s a beautiful day for all of us in the fact that the future is what we get to focus on. It’s a tribute to say thank you to those people who dedicate their lives for this country.
“The least that I can do is grab my guitar, get up there, and play when they point to me,” he said, “and just consider it the greatest honor that you can have as a musician in the greatest country in the world.”
Since 1901, according to the 20th Amendment of the United States Constitution, the Joint Congressional Committee on Inaugural Ceremonies (JCCIC) plans the Inaugural Ceremonies of the President-elect and Vice President-elect of the United States at the Capitol. The term of each elected President of the United States begins at noon on Jan. 20 of the year following the election, and each president must take the oath of office before assuming the duties of the position.
