Keith Urban reaches out to fans on 'Get Closer' tour
Country music superstar Keith Urban has spent much of the summer and fall "getting closer" to crowds in arenas across North America.
And he'll do it again in Rosemont Friday when his "Get Closer 2011 World Tour" hits the Allstate Arena.
"It's a pretty integrated, interactive concert experience. It's the most connected - metaphorically and literally - that we've ever been," Urban, 43, said in a telephone interview. "I go out into the audience, and I walk through the crowd to get to the stage. And we have moments when we bring some people from the crowd onstage to sing."
The four-time Grammy Award winner uses special lighting, multiple stages, ramps, 60-foot high-definition video screens and other high-tech methods to reach out to his fans.
The show features many of the songs from his "Get Closer" CD, including his newest single "Long Hot Summer," co-written with Richard Marx, and "Without You," Urban's 12th No. 1 song. Other hits like "Better Life" and "Sweet Thing" are also part of the program.
"People will know these songs," Urban said.
The New Zealand-born Australian artist said he doesn't assign deep meanings to his lyrics, preferring to let listeners decide what the songs mean in their own lives.
"A personal part of me is in all of the songs I do. But for the 'Get Closer' album, it's too easy for people to think it's a diary about me," Urban said. "I've always written songs hopefully in a way where people can connect their own story with it. Even the title - 'Get Closer' - is intended be an open-ended title that would mean different things to different people: Are they getting closer to the truth, or closer to their dream? Are they closer to the person they are with?"
One song that does have a specific theme for Urban is "Long Hot Summer," which he says is best enjoyed in a car - his favorite place to listen to music.
"I've always loved cars. One of the things I love most outside of music is driving any vehicle - the act of driving," Urban said.
Urban plays everything from electric guitar and banjo to the piano, drums and sitar. The singer-songwriter said the genre of country music has been changing for many years.
"It hasn't been like Conway Twitty and Johnny Cash for decades," he said. "It (country music) has really been pop since the '50s and '60s - from Glen Campbell and John Denver to Dolly Parton and Kenny Rogers - '9 to 5,' 'Islands in the Stream' - so many people in country have crossed over into pop. And now you are seeing a generation of artists who have grown up with all kinds of music."
Technology has played a role in country music's patchwork-quilt metamorphosis, Urban said.
"You've got kids out there in tiny towns across America who are watching artists on YouTube. And the iPod Shuffle has changed people's tastes and has made music far more eclectic than it's ever been," Urban added. "People are listening to the iPod Shuffle and realizing, 'I really like (Luciano) Pavarotti and Eminem.'"
After the Allstate Arena concert, Urban's tour moves north to Minneapolis before closing shop.
Urban said he will be happy to "regroup" and head home to wife Nicole Kidman and daughters Sunday Rose, 3, and Faith, 9 months, who, her proud father says, loves to pull herself up to a mini pink piano and pound on its keys.
Urban also plans to get back to writing songs.
"I'm already anxious to start writing again," he said. "I don't write when I am on tour, because all of my creative energy goes to the stage. But when the tour shuts down and the buses go way, then I'm free to write. And that's when the songs come to me."
It's the music itself - not the accolades - that matters most, Urban said.
"I started playing a guitar at the age of 6, because I loved playing music, and I loved singing. From there everything began."
Has he achieved his dream?
"I would say it's more like a destiny than a dream," Urban said. "It's never felt like a dream. This is my life's path. I can feel it. There are twists and turns, and away I go. I don't know where the path goes, or where I'll end up. It's just the path I follow."
“Keith Urban Get Closer 2011 World Tour”
When: 7:30 p.m. Friday, Oct. 14Where: Allstate Arena, 6920 N. Mannheim Road, Rosemont
Tickets: $25-$59.50. Parking is $20 (cash only). Call (800) 745-3000 or visit