I don’t like country music.

I am indeed one of those people who thinks every top 40 country song is about how much the singer loves pick-up trucks, beer and generic B-roll footage of America at sunrise. 

Who has no need for the top 40 stuff from what a Outlaw Country XM Station host once deemed “flat-bellied air humpers,” 

With two first names (or nowadays no first names) who sing bland SEC frat anthems while uniformly wearing white shirts and backwards caps.

Performing for ACMT’s 75 televised “tribute to country” concert-paloozas each year.

Or so I thought. Because here I am, still basking in the glow of an absolutely sensational time at Keith Urban’s headlining gig Saturday night at Summerfest.

Making his first Big Gig appearance in almost a decade – he last headlined in 2015, with a bonus post-festival tour stop in 2022 – Urban made up for his lost Summerfest time with more than 90 minutes of seemingly uninterrupted pure performance and mesmerizing guitar-playing. As my frankly ignorant second paragraph probably made clear, I certainly don’t know everything about country – but I do know a good show, and the Aussie pop country veteran absolutely delivered that on Saturday night to a fairly packed, always ecstatic Amp crowd.

Here are seven reasons why you shouldn’t have missed Urban’s show and probably shouldn’t miss his next one – even if you, like some goofuses I know, think you hate country music.

Before Saturday’s show, whenever I chatted with folks about pop country music, they would often say that Keith Urban might be a star who could change my mind thanks to his impressive guitar prowess.

And those folks were very damn right.

Seemingly every song along Urban’s 19-track setlist – from his sunny opening track “Straight Line” to his grand techno-aided finale “Wasted Time” – came with at least a brief flurry of casual guitar brilliance. Even a slower song, like “Cop Car” came with a round of impressive guitar flourishes, Urban’s fingers climbing and hopscotching around the frets, yet seemingly without any sweat from the country rock star. They weren’t just self-indulgent show, either, as Urban embued each solo with the soul and character of his songs – bouncy and energetic for his peppier anthems, or plucky and herky-jerky fun for “WILDSIDE,” which he debuted live for the first time on Saturday night.

His crowning achievement, though, may have come during “Long Hot Summer” (with a dash of the new Morgan Wallen/Post Malone smash “I Had Some Help). What started as yet another extended guitar showcase – ebbing and flowing in volume and ferocity, erupting into a growly barrage of chords then fading into muted quiet, all with impeccable control and insane nonchalant ease – suddenly blended in thumping both the strings of his guitar before, sure, let’s add in slapping the mic for bonus percussion too. It was the kind of masterful and effortlessly cool guitar performance that makes you want to pick up the guitar … then almost immediately put it back down because you’re never going to be that good or cool, certainly not anytime soon.

That’s why you see the pros – and Urban’s one of the better pros around, as Saturday cemented.

Keith Urban Save for a few colorful effects on the big screen behind him – and a few pre-recorded cameos from Carrie Underwood on “The Fighter” and P!nk on “One Too Many” – the country star mainly just played Saturday night. And played. And played. For at least over an hour and a half, Urban and company just unrelentingly played crowd-pleasing hit after crowd-pleasing hit with barely much of a pause – and barely much of a need, it seemed.

When Urban did take a quick timeout to chat with the crowd, it was just as pleasant and compelling. The man has a calm, low-key charm and charisma on stage that feels authentic and unforced – whether he’s interviewing a local couple about their upcoming wedding (more on that in a second … ), leading a “Freddie Mercury at Live Aid”-esque call-and-answer or chatting with his bandmates about their glorious first Summerfest … playing at 11 a.m. If you hate country music, Urban puts on a personable and impressive show that’s easy to love.

Anyways, it turns out when you’re that comfortable on stage, that skilled on the guitar and have that deep of a catalogue that pull from, all you need is a yourself, a good band and a Buc-ees shirt to keep a gigantic crowd wholly captivated.

After an energetic and rocking first trio of songs, Urban took a quick break to chat with the crowd – one pair in particular, an engaged couple getting married this fall. Crowd interactions are nothing new to the concert experience, but Urban seemed sweetly sincere and genuinely engaged while chatting with the happy couple, making what can often feel like canned interaction feel earnest and entertainingly adorable. All his on-stage charisma and charm was weaponized not for jamming out, but just … pleasant conversation, somehow just as captivating.

The couple came fully prepared for the moment, handing the country rock all-star a wedding invitation that he amusingly read out to the crowd and autographed. He said he’ll be there – and it says a lot about Urban’s sincere on-stage personality that I’m almost convinced there’s a non-zero percent chance he will. Even if he doesn’t show, though, he gifted the couple – and the entire audience – the next best thing: a special impromptu rendition of his romantic ode “You’re My Better Half” by request, performed acoustic while sitting on the side of the stage, singing directly to the future husband and wife.

In case his effortlessly energetic opening and impressive way around an intricate guitar solo somehow hadn’t already done the trick, with that sweet and delightfully personable detour, I was totally sold on Keith Urban, with all of my remaining skepticism as crushed as the wedding band’s hopes of remotely topping this moment at that couple’s big day.

Obviously that moment was wholly unexpected and not on the usual tour playlist, but the rest of Keith Urban’s Summerfest set felt just as full of surprises and fun swerves. As a newcomer, you were never sure if his rendition of “Kiss A Girl” would suddenly but smoothly pivot into a brief cover of Ed Sheeran’s “Bad Habits,” or that he’d open his ballad portion of the night with a quick acoustic riff on Miley Cyrus’ “Flowers,” or that Taylor Swift’s “Anti-Hero” would make a quick cameo.

And that was just the covers. Urban’s setlist as a whole seemed to happily flit across genres throughout the night, sometimes going full country before careening into the poppy dance groove of his Carrie Underwood duet “The Fighter,” the rocking electronic-aided closer for the night “Wasted Time” or the starry-eyed slow-dance ballad “Blue Ain’t Your Color.” But somehow it all fit together and sounded terrific, Urban fluidly blending country, pop and rock into a supreme summer night for his fans at the Amp. You were never quite sure what you were getting next – but you knew it was probably going to sound damn good.

Near the middle of the show, the Aussie country rock star made his way down under – aka through the pit crowd (all while casually playing yet another impressive guitar solo, of course) to a previously unseen surprise pop-up stage amongst the people for a quick down-tempo, acoustic session. While the stage and sound may have been smaller, the quality and stage charisma was still immense – with a gigantic emotional heft to match. After playing a quick riff of Miley Cyrus’ “Flowers,” Urban strummed into the heartbroken ballad “You’ll Think Of Me,” performed with surprisingly raw emotion that escalated into an impressively felt finale.

The requisite acoustic section of shows, especially at festivals, can be where audiences’ attentions wander – but Urban’s heartfelt performance kept the Amp crowd locked in and loving it even with the volume turned down low. And as an added bonus, before retreating back to the main stage, he signed his guitar and gifted it out to an extremely lucky nearby fan. Urban played three more songs on the night, but I can’t imagine that fan heard a single note after receiving the ultimate piece of concert memorabilia.

During his closing number, “Wasted Time,” the country star introduced the very talented bandmates playing alongside him on the night, including a keyboard player from Milwaukee … and a guitarist from Milwaukee … and a multi-instrumentalist from Milwaukee … and, well, you get the idea. By the end of the segment, it absurdly turned out just about every member of Urban’s on-stage crew called Brew City originally home – except for the drummer, who wasn’t from Wisconsin but told the crowd that he wished he was.

Maybe this was all just a gag? No matter the case, though, whether they were playing along on the stage or singing along in the stands, Milwaukee played quite a critical role in making Saturday’s Amp set so spectacular.

How good was Keith Urban’s Amp show on Saturday night? This country skeptic found not just one country act to believe in, but two thanks to the rollicking Southern-fried rock set from openers NEEDTOBREATHE.

In the rare cases where the planets align and the moons are in the correct orbit, resulting in me enjoying country music, I tend to gravitate less toward Urban’s pop-forward lot and more toward outlaw country acts – your Chris Stapletons and such, where the songs and voices have a real texture and tread to them, blending rock, blues, bluegrass and twang together into something that sounds like real country to me. (Urban, at least live, splits the difference between the two.) Anyways, the universe must’ve been in glorious alignment last night, because that’s exactly what the South Carolina-born band delivered across their entire 30-minute session, roaring onto the stage after the night’s first opener (the talented, Kelsea Ballerini-in-training Alana Springsteen).

Sounding like Stapleton but with a happier pep in his step, NEEDTOBREATHE ignited the early Amp crowd with growly, textured and intensely catchy country rock blasts, such as “Money & Fame” and “State I’m In.” After quickly grabbing the moderately full crowd’s attention with those two early bangers, the band maintained that energy and entertainment factor (with the help of some harmonica jam sessions) all the way through to their rowdy finale, “The Outsiders.” It all made for a great opener – the best kind that has the audience clamoring to hunt down their songs on Spotify immediately after they left the stage.

NEEDTOBREATHE was a memorable early highlight in an evening jam-packed with them at the Amp – no matter whether you were a pop country hardcore or a fresh convert.

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Source: Tampa Bay Times