Keith Urban is itching to get back to basics
Nashville-based singer Keith Urban is planning to turn his back on the big stage next year.
Keith Urban is well used to performing in arenas, so it’ll be like falling off a log for the 49-year-old country music star when his Australian tour gets under way at Adelaide Entertainment Centre tonight.
Yet the Nashville-based singer is planning to turn his back on the big stage next year, “just to get some stubble back, to get some grit back into my playing”.
Urban’s plan to play smaller shows with a stripped-back band is a throwback to his early career on the pub circuit in Australia and in our country music capital, Tamworth.
“I’ve spoken to other guitarists about this,” Urban said in Sydney yesterday. “You play big arenas or amphitheatres and you’re playing on a plateau, the band’s a million miles away. It’s an event, not a small little sweaty, grimy club. I want to do more of those. When a band is on top of each other, it’s the greatest way to play. I miss that, so I’ll do a run of that before the next record.”
In the meantime, Urban will have to settle for playing to large audiences, as he has been doing around the world since May to promote his latest album, Ripcord.
The Australian leg of the tour has meant more time than usual away from his family — wife Nicole Kidman and their children Sunday Rose and Faith — but that will change next week when they arrive towards the end of the tour to spend Christmas with him and their families.
“We’ll all have Christmas out here so I’m looking forward to that,” Urban said. “Thirteen days away from them is a long time. Usually I’ll only go out and do about three shows and then go home.”
Urban, who was born in New Zealand but spent most of his childhood in Caboolture in Queensland, has been based in Nashville for 24 years.
His status in Nashville is such that Urban and family will leave Australia on December 27 so that he can perform a headline outdoor concert in the city on New Year’s Eve.
“The town has been really good to me and really good to us as a family,” Urban said.
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