DALLAS — The excitement of Garth Brooks' fans for his concert at AT&T Stadium this summer might be topped by just one person: Garth himself.
"We're not coming to Dallas because we've never been," Brooks told WFAA Daybreak on Thursday morning. "We're coming because we have. It's a guaranteed good time."
The country music legend joined Daybreak ahead of tickets going on sale Friday morning for his concert on July 30 in Arlington. Sales start at 10 a.m. on Ticketmaster.
The concert this summer will be Brooks' first stop at AT&T Stadium, which opened in 2009, and Brooks last played North Texas in 2015, at American Airlines Center in Dallas.
But the Oklahoma native is no stranger to the Dallas-Fort Worth crowds. When he was here in 2015, he played seven shows in a row at the AAC.
At the height of his popularity in the 1990s, he played Texas Stadium, the former home of the Cowboys in Irving. And early in his career, he lived briefly in the Dallas-Fort Worth area as his band toured smaller venues, he said.
"This is kind of where it began," Brooks said Thursday of North Texas, mentioning their early days playing the Southern Junction and Cowboys dancehall. "This is the people who fed you when you couldn't afford to feed yourself. This was the place."
Brooks didn't have much of a preview for his setlist this time around, and that's by design. He said the band will start with a plan of a few songs. Then he'll let the crowd take it from there.
"The people will tell you" what they want to hear next, Brooks said.
Brooks, known for his boisterous on-stage persona, won't hold back from the hits, like "The Thunder Rolls" and the singalong favorite, "Friends in Low Places."
He said his personal favorite song to perform is "Callin' Baton Rouge."
"Once you introduce it, the crowd goes to a place they've never been all night," Brooks said. "And it's your job as an entertainer to never let them come back down."
AT&T Stadium will be among the larger venues on his tour this year. So far, he only has one night on the calendar in Arlington. He's playing two nights at Nashville's Nissan Stadium this weekend, but Brooks quickly dismissed the idea of a second show at AT&T, for now.
"We'll be lucky to have some people show up," Brooks said, in the understatement of the year. "If it's five, it's 50,000, if it's whatever – just get ready. Bring your helmet. This will be fun."