Garth Brooks' Lively 'Callin' Baton Rouge' Performance at LSU Concert Registered as an Earthquake

Garth Brooks performed a concert to more than 102,000 fans at LSU's Tiger Stadium on Saturday, and movement in the venue registered as a small earthquake when he sang "Callin' Baton Rouge"

Garth Brooks. Photo: John Medina/Getty

Garth Brooks' latest performance literally left the audience shaking in their cowboy boots.

The 60-year-old country legend performed a concert to more than 102,000 fans at Louisiana State University's Tiger Stadium on Saturday, and according to a professor at the college, movement in the venue registered as a small earthquake when he sang LSU's unofficial alma mater song, "Callin' Baton Rouge."

Written by Dennis Linde and first recorded by the Oak Ridge Boys in 1978, Brooks popularized "Callin' Baton Rouge" by recording it for his 1993 In Pieces album, and the song peaked at No. 2 on the Billboard Hot Country Songs chart the following year.

"Callin' Baton Rouge / Operator, won't you put me on through / I gotta send my love down to Baton Rouge," sings Brooks on the track, which has become a popular anthem at LSU sporting events, tailgates, and during closing time at bars. "Hurry up, won't you put her on the line / I gotta talk to the girl just one more time."

Ahead of the concert, a Twitter user named Nicholas Persac posted, "Is somebody at @lsu running the seismograph for when he plays Callin' BR, or…," to which the official LSU account replied, "Actually…yes."

"This is going to be loud. This is going to be stupid, and it's going to go all night long," Brooks told local outlet WAFB ahead of the concert, but it's unlikely he knew exactly how powerful the "Callin' Baton Rouge" performance would be.

Following the show, Chief Brand Officer of LSU sports Cody Worsham tweeted a photo of what the seismograph machine recorded during "Callin' Baton Rouge," and the small earthquake — referred to as the "Garthquake" by Brooks on Twitter — is clearly visible.

The concert marked Brooks' first time playing Baton Rouge in 24 years, so the rowdiness was to be expected. In addition to the earthquake-level movement, many audience members reportedly received Apple Watch alerts about harmful noise levels during the performance, with many users' devices recording over 95 decibels of sound in the stadium.

Brooks' lively performance was the second time such levels of movement have been recorded at Tiger Stadium in 30 years, as it previously happened when LSU's football team beat Auburn University in a tight game with two minutes left in 1988.

"Thanks for letting us be a small piece of thread in the family and the fabric of the LSU Tigers," said the musician after performing "Callin' Baton Rouge" at the concert, which he told WAFB would become the second-largest stadium concert in North American history.

"You can get a Grammy, they can put you in the Hall of Fame, but getting a text from your buddies that are in the stadium here when they do 'Callin' Baton Rouge' and you get to see it will make you cry and make you jump up," he told the outlet of the song's legacy. "It's the coolest thing."