Keith Urban may not have his wife, Nicole Kidman, with him as he makes his way to the area for his “Get Closer 2011 World Tour” but the Academy Award-winning actress will surely be present in other ways. After all, Urban named his sixth album “Get Closer,” as a tribute to his wife.
“I have always run from intimacy,” Urban said on his website. “and marriage has been a real awakening for me in looking at that very differently.”
| Onstage |
| Keith Urban with Jake Owen |
| When: 7:30 p.m. Thursday |
| Where: Verizon Center, 601 F St., NW |
| Info: $25 to $65; 202-397-SEAT; ticketmaster.com |
To entice fans to “Get Closer,” too, Urban has designed his concerts to connect with fans even more than before. Besides the main stage, the tour features four small platforms that bring the country star into the audience.
Think that’s just a false sense of closeness, like when superstars prance on catwalks over audiences to give the feel of “closeness?” That’s not true here, according to concert reviews.
At a show in Cleveland last week, Urban urged arena security to “get rid of all these silly fences and barriers” and to “let people have a good time tonight,” according to the Columbus Dispatch.
If prior shows on this tour are any indication, fans are in for a wild, rocking night of good times.
A recent show in Detroit went well over two hours as Urban sailed through his hits and covers by everyone from Little Big Town to Paul McCartney, Bob Seger and Waylon Jennings, according to American Songwriter. Although the show was power packed, highlights were Urban’s own hits that included “Once in a Lifetime,” “I Told You So” and Raining on Sunday.”
Perhaps it’s not that surprising that Urban has kicked off the tour of his lifetime. As he’s publicly said many times, his life has turned around dramatically since he married Kidman and became sober. He credits her with getting him into rehab in October 2006 and standing by him as he fought his drug and alcohol addictions.
Now that he has so much to celebrate, Urban said he’s committed to the “Get Closer” concept of arena shows without boundaries although he does concede that fans occasionally use the walkways to come on stage.
“But it didn’t happen nearly as much as people thought it would,” Urban told Billboard magazine of test runs with the stage. “I’ve always had this feeling that when you put barriers up people want to get over them, but if you get rid of the barrier and people knew they could come up if they wanted, they’re less inclined to. Now, I’m talking fairly logical people, too; you get enough alcohol into the right fans and there’s no logic involved. But I’ve always felt from my audience it’s more of an ‘us thing’ instead of me and them, so I’m more inclined to keep opening up all of that access and integrating the audience more.”
