Keith Urban Concert Review

9^th April Ottawa, Canada

Although mainly unknown in Europe, Keith Urban is presently one of the biggest country acts both is the USA and his home country of Australia.

With five US number one singles, over five million albums sold, nine top five hits and several Grammy nominations, it can be said that he is doing quite well!

Keith is a down to earth performer, with good lyrics, good songs and he also plays a mean guitar.

This concert review takes place in Ottawa, Canada and is the third and last concert we had attended during our vacation previously having seen Steve Vai and Duran Duran.

Gordie Samson opened for Keith. Gordie is a singer songwriter, who has written many songs including some on Keith Urban’s new album “Be Here”. By himself with just an acoustic guitar, he provided a handful of great songs including a new track called “Paris”. This tells the story of Gordie and his band getting attacked and how they ended up in hospital on Bastille Day in Paris, it does however masquerade as a love song. This track is soon to be recorded by Faith Hill.

Then the lights dimmed and Keith Urban came on amongst the wildest and loudest screams I have ever witnessed ay a concert since the Beatles came around.

Keith appeared under low down lights and behind a black screen in the shadows. He slowly rose on a stool high above the stage, alone with his acoustic guitar singing the “These are the days”, which was followed by the full band joining him with energy. This got the crowd on its feet and moving to the music.

He then performed songs such as, “Jeans On” (for which he had a fan’s Bra hanging on his guitar!), “You'll Look Good in my Shirt”, “But for the Grace of God” and his latest single “No End in Sight”.

Keith was natural on stage and took his time to interact with the audience, to the point where he even had one of his female fans join him on the stage when he didn’t understand her placard. The sign read “I love your diastema, I want to kiss you in front of it”. His diastema happened to be the gap between his teeth and the fan fulfilled her fantasy amidst the screens of all the ladies in the house.

He also had an excellent stage setup with two microphones both stage left and right practically sitting out in the crowd as well as his normal centre stage microphone.

His band was truly excellent, with tight timing and a close focus to follow Keith on any improvisation especially when the crowd got singing etc...

Equipment wise it was mostly Fender, Keith played his usual bound Telecaster with 3 pickups, a black Stratocaster and also for some songs a Gibson Les Paul Junior which sports a lone p90 pickup.

The bass player had Fender Jazz bass. And also other instruments such as Acoustic Guitar and Mandolin where used. Keith’s guitarist mainly used a Gibson Les Paul Classic Goldtop.

All in all a great concert, with a down to earth performer, who focuses on his music.

By Ernest H Slade