Brooks will perform matinees, but not in Dublin

The country music star was supposed to make his return to the stage in with five nights in Croke Park beginning on Friday past.

Dublin City Council refused a licence for two of the nights and Brooks said it was all or nothing.

Council officials were prepared to allow the star to perform two matinees in order to accommodate the shows, something Brooks rejected.

He said he didn’t want to give his fans a “half-assed” performance.

Yet when tickets went on sale on Friday for a run of 10 shows in Chicago for the opening of his world tour, three matinee concerts were included.

Dublin city Lord Mayor Christy Burke said the singer owed those disappointed fans an apology while the concert promoter Peter Aiken defended Brooks.

“He doesn’t owe anyone an apology,” he said.

“The matinee suggestion was never going to work anyway, you couldn’t have done it. It was physically impossible.”

Mr Aiken said the American shows were being held in an indoor venue smaller than Croke Park, and would be staged later in the evening than the proposed Dublin afternoon offer.

“It’s not even a quarter of the size of the show that he was going to put into Croke Park.

“The stage he was going to have was going to take over one-third of the pitch.

“The scale of it was incredible. It was going to be spectacular and it was all based on the lights and production which wouldn’t work during the day, you wouldn’t be able to see it,” he added.

Mr Aiken said that the cargo ships carrying equipment for the shows were returning to America while three-quarters of ticket-holders for the cancelled concerts have been refunded.