Keith Urban x Scotty Kay US*99 Take Over

Country superstar Keith Urban joined Audacy host Scotty Kay at Chicago’s US*99, taking over the show on the night of his surprise concert at Carol’s Pub following his appearance in the Windy City over the weekend at the NASCAR Street Race. The intimate show, dubbed How I Got Here, Keith explains, stems from his forthcoming album which “was always gonna be called ‘HIGH,’" he says, “and when we talk about doing these underplay shows leading up to the release of the album that were going on sale before the album title was announced… my smart manager Elizabeth suggested it might be a great anacronym for how I got here, which is how I got here is playing tiny little clubs.” “This is how I got to do what I'm doing,” Keith adds, “so it's like second nature to me to be in a tiny little club. I mean, the benefit is that people hopefully are coming to listen. I'm used to playing in these clubs when nobody cares that you're up on stage.” Touching on lessons learned throughout his more than 30-...

Country superstar Keith Urban joined Audacy host Scotty Kay at Chicago’s US*99, taking over the show on the night of his surprise concert at Carol’s Pub following his appearance in the Windy City over the weekend at the NASCAR Street Race.

The intimate show, dubbed How I Got Here, Keith explains, stems from his forthcoming album which “was always gonna be called ‘HIGH,’" he says, “and when we talk about doing these underplay shows leading up to the release of the album that were going on sale before the album title was announced… my smart manager Elizabeth suggested it might be a great anacronym for how I got here, which is how I got here is playing tiny little clubs.”

“This is how I got to do what I'm doing,” Keith adds, “so it's like second nature to me to be in a tiny little club. I mean, the benefit is that people hopefully are coming to listen. I'm used to playing in these clubs when nobody cares that you're up on stage.”

Touching on lessons learned throughout his more than 30-year career, from Keith’s perspective “everything is nuanced -- entertaining, playing guitar, writing songs, making records… Every part of it is just learning nuance.” More recently, scaling things back and taking a more minimal approach has been his challenge. “Because my music tends to sort of expand and contract and these club shows have been a great opportunity to bring it back to just a bare minimum,” Urban tells us. “There's no track support, there's no video screens, there's no keyboards, there's nothing. It’s just what you see.”

“I come from playing in a lot of three-piece bands where there was just me, drums, and bass. So you have to play guitar very, very differently than when you're in a band with a guitar player, a keyboard player,” Keith says. “I was looking forward to bringing it back, to getting into that place where there's nowhere to hide. That's really the thing. There is nowhere to hide when people are standing right in front of you. There's no trickery and there's no net.”

Keith is well known by fans for his incredible stage presence, often taking the show into the stands to get up close and personal with attendees. His crew, he says, are all used to his antics by now. “The truth is… I've done it for so long that I could run off and go in almost any direction and make it work with no security -- knock on wood -- I've been doing it so long, I can slip and slide in and out of almost anything from headlocks to freakish hugs,” Urban says.

“I was at a gig one time,” he recalls, “I ran out in the crowd; I was coming back and this woman I thought was just being a little bit too much of a fan, she latched onto my guitar and just wouldn't let it go. I'm sort of trying to get back to the stage and I'm pulling my guitar and she's coming with me and I'm like, ‘She's a complete psycho!’ It then occurred to me I'd hooked my guitar into the mesh of her clothing. She was trying to become untangled and I'm actually dragging her all the way back to the stage like a fish caught in a net and she's desperately trying to escape. The most unusual things can happen!”