Keith Urban Opens Tour Rehearsal to Fans and Friends
Thursday was 'Take Your Fans to Work' day for Keith Urban, as he opened his tour rehearsals to about 500 fan club members, contest winners and industry folk. With the start of the country superstar's Get Closer World Tour just one week away, he decided a dress rehearsal wasn't complete without an audience.
Held at Nashville's Municipal Auditorium, the tour preview was more like a mini-concert with all of the bells and whistles. The traveling stage was set up in all its glory, including a big round screen projecting videos for each song, along with an elaborate lighting fixture shaped like a rollercoaster (and practically the size of one).
"The idea for the theme park came from the song, 'Til Summer Comes Around,' which is set in a theme park," Keith told The Boot in an exclusive interview before he took the stage. "What I love about theme parks is taking everybody away from their lives for a while, taking them to another place with more imagination.
"We ended up with a big circle, like a Ferris wheel," the singer continued, "and then the rollercoaster track, which is more impressionistic to us. But the lights move up and down the track like a rollercoaster."
Casually dressed in a T-shirt and jeans, Keith kicked off the hour-long set with 'Only You Can Love Me This Way,' followed by ... whoops ... the wrong song. "OK, this is the point where we give you your money back," the singer joked upon stopping the band after a few incorrect chords. "What would we have done if that happened on the tour, you ask? Well, we would've just played the wrong song."
The right song was 'You Gonna Fly,' from the tour's namesake album, 'Get Closer,' and Keith seamlessly transitioned from it into a few verses of Little Big Town's debut hit, 'Boondocks,' as video of the quartet played on the big screen behind him. Another uptempo love song followed, 'Long Hot Summer,' after which the band left the stage leaving Keith alone to play his poignant ballad, 'Making Memories of Us,' armed with just an acoustic guitar.
A Grammy-winning ballad, 'You'll Think of Me,' was next -- but on a different stage, as Keith made his way across the auditorium to a small round riser on the opposite side of the floor. Fans gathered around him, close enough to touch, to sing along to the song and take pictures with their cell phones.
'Days Go By,' 'Without You,' 'Who Wouldn't Want to Be Me' and 'You Look Good in My Shirt' finished out the high-energy set, with the latter two songs featuring Keith on an electric guitar bejeweled with bright lights that blinked different colors.
"And that was just about 25 percent of what you will see on tour," Keith said before thanking the audience for coming and for providing background vocals to every lyric.
Keith Urban's Get Closer World Tour kicks off June 16 in Biloxi, Miss. Get a full list of his tour dates here.
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