THE LAST HONKY-TONK
Vanilli was blaming it on the rain and Cher was turning back time, a little-known Oklahoman named Garth Brooks was feeling much too young to feel so damn old inside a brand-new honky-tonk in industrial north Denver. The Grizzly Rose had just opened and was one of the first clubs in America to book Brooks. “This is kind of where it started,” Brooks told reporters before his performance at Empower Field at Mile High this past June. Both Brooks and the Rose—as it’s affectionately called—rode America’s obsession with line dancing and country music through the ’90s. By the end of
