LAS VEGAS (KLAS) — Ahead of night one of country music superstar Garth Brooks’ “Plus ONE” residency, the artist said he was looking to separate the Caesars Palace shows from his previous residency at the Wynn Las Vegas, which ran for more than four years. While that show featured an acoustic set the “Plus ONE” show will spotlight a full band, or as he called it, “the muscle.”

“The one thing that was missing in the Wynn show was the muscle,” said Brooks. “It’s like a real expensive car. You can get as quiet as you want and as smooth as you want. You step on that gas. It’s gonna get loud, and it’s gonna get hectic.”

He wants the audience to experience what he, as an artist, feels at the end of a show.

“I want you worn out when you get out here because it’s only fair,” said Brooks. “I’m worn out when I get out of here. So I want us all to feel the same thing.”

Brooks spoke to 8newsnow.com‘s Jillian Lopez, and told her that his residency will allow him to experiment.

“If I’m working on something today, if I’m just starting today, guess what? I can play it out there tonight if I want to — because it’s a laboratory,” said Brooks.

The artist teased that special guests may be a part of the show over the course of the residency, including Brooks’ wife, country star Trisha Yearwood.

“If I’m lucky, Miss Yearwood will come out on the nights that she can be here,” he said. “And if there’s somebody else, anywhere else, that wants to come in be on stage, it’s always a sweet thing.”

Lopez asked Brooks if there was a chance that he and his band would headline the Super Bowl LVIII halftime show at Allegiant Stadium in Las Vegas in February. The artist said he had been approached several times for other Super Bowl halftime shows and hadn’t been able to come to a deal.

“[NFL officials] understand what they have,” said Brooks. “They know their worth and their value, and so we kind of know ours too. So I don’t know if we’ll ever cross paths.”

Brooks said that while Las Vegas is known for glitz and glamour, at it’s core he found that the fans who attend concerts in the entertainment capital of the world are real music fans.

“[Las Vegas has] this reputation that everything’s smoke and mirrors, trapeze — everything’s show and art. But when you get in here, what you find is the people who feel those seats know their music inside and out,” he said.

A controversy that arose recently during the release of tickets for Taylor Swift’s Eras Tour was Ticketmaster’s handling of that highly sought-after event. On announcing the Plus ONE residency’s extension into 2024, Brooks said he hoped the broker’s “verified fan” system would make tickets available to those who didn’t get a chance at the first group of announced dates.

“I can’t believe how far out they sell tickets in this town because that’s never been our thing,” he said. “If those people are still interested, then hopefully there’ll be treated the way I think it’s fair — that they should be treated — and be first in line.”

Concerning the show being a “phone-free experience,” Brooks said it was a decision made to allow each show to be individual and exclusive to the audience in the crowd on that night.

“I want the show to be brand new for them, not something they can go online and just see the whole damn thing,” he said. “I don’t think it’s fair to them.”

While the artist admitted that people don’t like locking their phones away, he hopes that providing professional photos and possibly video upon the show’s completion will be enough of a reward for the audience’s patience.

“People can now have their memories to themselves, or they can choose to post them if they wish,” said Brooks.

Brooks said he hopes Thursday’s debut is the “worst show of all of them” while still being “fantastic.” He said the residency, starting on Thursday, is a work in progress, with every performance improving upon the last.

“I have no clue what the first song is,” he said. “It’s cool, but you can’t build something that depends on the people without the people. So tonight, we’ll start building.”