Double Duty: A remarkably candid, funny and at times teary Garth Brooks never sat down and paced the stage as he discussed his return to music, the challenges facing the music industry, his legacy and more in this morning's Q&A-style (2/23) "Inside Studio G" conducted by Pearl regional Glenn Noblit. 

"Concerts are like sex," Brooks quipped while discussing his one-city-at-a-time approach to touring. "Because the whole time you're working to get an invitation back!" Brooks reminded the audience that concerts are an ordeal for fans, citing the cost of tickets, dinner out, parking, babysitters, beers and t-shirts. "In Boston the parking was more than the price of the concert ticket," he noted, growing emotional. "It's a pain in the ass to go to these things. And yet they show up. And they show up in the back freakin' rows."

Driving home his point, Brooks recalled seeing Queen, one of his first concerts, with a girlfriend. "We stood in our chairs on the 13th row and all I wanted was for Freddie Mercury to look at me for three seconds just so I could say, 'Thank you, man.' I just want to say 'thank you' back. Thank you for my life, thank you for my childrens' college. Thank you for the dream gig."

Brooks repeatedly thanked radio. "Everybody has their agenda and I get that," he said, referencing the commercial nature of the music business. "What I love about radio is that ... there's still that art side. Some of the best faces I remember seeing in the crowd were the radio people ... I think people are in radio because they just love music."

After discussing his partnership with Amazon, the future of radio as he saw it ("Radio is here forever," he asserted), Brooks was asked by an audience member where he finds the energy to play nine shows in a weekend. Smiling, he offered, "It's something music does, man ... if your job was eating ice cream for a living and your boss said, 'You're gonna have to pull a double shift today...' That's my life. I love it."