The superstar is nearing the end of his summer trek amid turmoil in his personal life
“It’s nice to be in an amphitheater when it’s not 90 friggin’ degrees out,” Keith Urban said two songs into his High and Alive Tour stop at Jiffy Lube Live on Saturday (Oct 4th). Indeed, it was a beautiful and cooler night that was teetering between springtime freshness and autumn crispness. Perfect for a night of Urban’s singular country stylings.
The show opened with a larger-than-life silhouette of Urban against a white curtain, his trademark mop of hair giving him away. The curtain dropped as he and his (new) band started with “Straight Line” from 2024’s High album.
Urban performed the song with no stage lights. Instead, the stage was lit only by the five inverted LED screens that act as sort of moveable ceiling to his stage formed in a T. (Think “blocky” from Justin Timberlake’s tour if the anthropomorphic rectangle took Ozempic.) The effect was really cool, and made everyone lean in that much further.
Urban has a reputation as one of the most fan-friendly superstars in all of music. The other shining feature of his stage are the “Springsteen ramps” that led off the stage and right into the standing pit. It was great to see the artists and the fans so close. He played “Days Go By” at the stage left edge of one of these ramps, inches from super-enthused fans who sang every word.
Musically, Urban is in fine form. He is one of his genre’s best guitarists. And he seems to embody the shape of whatever note he’s shredding. Fans go crazy when his playing moves him to get low to the floor, spin around on one leg, or get in that squat-profile pose that has become synonymous with Urban’s marketing.
His twangy Aussie voice is full throttle, even after a summer of criss-crossing the country. “Somewhere in My Car” was a stellar example of Urban’s vocal storytelling power. Same with the slower “Cop Car,” with Urban and band awash in blue lighting.
There was considerable controversy when Urban dispatched his longtime players for an entirely new group of musicians. This included a player who had mastered a large, red deck with knobs and touchpads that looked more like a Star Trek spaceship control center than a musical instrument. It was cool and novel, and his former players very talented. But this line up—just musicians and their instruments, no sci-fi tech—lacks the artifice that came with making a sound machine the centerpiece of your live mix.
I, for one, think this new band is an improvement on his live sound. It allows Urban to showcase the talent in the songwriting behind his catalogue, rather than replicate its production. And for those wondering: Maggie Baugh, the band’s guitarist who has been caught up in rumors around a relationship with Urban, was not at the show. She was filling in at the show she played and sang at.
And a side note about those rumors: they stem from two singers giving a romantic duet an emotional performance. That’s what singers are supposed to do. It’s called living in the moment, not fantasizing about tour bus bedroom acrobatics. Sure, Urban did a flirty adlib. But he’s been known to mix it up while singing. That Baugh is now the subject of home-wrecking allegations for simply doing her job is despicable, and shows what the tabloids know about concerts and live performance. Which is zip. Zilch. They should go back to discussing Taylor singing about how much she loves Travis’ ‘magic goal post’ or whatever she calls it.
For what it’s worth, Urban made no mention of his split with famed actress and AMC movie theater prisoner Nicole Kidman. He genuinely seemed to enjoy himself on stage, despite what has to be a very trying time. Maybe he’s living what he told the Bristow, VA crowd is his “mission statement” for these concerts; to forget the world and real life for two hours.
Whether he meant for it to or not, this set list on this tour highlights the important place Urban occupies in country music. He’s a bridge: he was one of the first artist of the 2000s decade to become a superstar. But his contemporary releases have stayed fresh and achieved their own successes, even in one bro-country and “post” bro-country landscape. (See 2022’s addicting “Wild Hearts.”) That is a legacy that will keep America’s favorite singing Aussie ‘high and alive’ for many more decades to come.
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