Keith Urban once again used his New Year’s Eve set, as part of Nashville’s Music City Midnight show, to pay tribute to artists who passed away in 2018, including Aretha Franklin, Roy Clark and Lynyrd Skynyrd‘s Ed King.
“For the last few years we’ve played on New Year’s Eve, I’ve taken the opportunity to put together a medley of some of the people we’ve lost across the year, and I’ve done it again this year,” Urban shared. “I’m gonna play a couple of songs to just recognize a few of the people that we lost this year.
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Urban kicked off his lengthy musical by performing “Zombie” by The Cranberries, in honor Dolores O’Riordan, “Respect” by Franklin, “Rollin’ In My Sweet Baby’s Arms” by Clark, Avicii‘s “Wake Me Up,” and Lynyrd Skynyrd’s Sweet Home Alabama,” where he was joined for a lengthy guitar interlude by the iconic Peter Frampton.
Urban had plenty to celebrate as he wrapped up 2018. The singer-songwriter completed the North American leg of his Graffiti U World Tour, and capped off the year by taking home the CMA Award for Entertainer of the Year.
“It’s an indescribable feeling to get that [award],” Urban shared with PopCulture.com and other media. “I love entertaining. I love putting on shows. I started playing guitar when I was six, and I came up playing in the clubs, four hours a night, five hours a night, five nights a week. And I wasn’t writing songs. I was just schlepping my gear and doing cover tunes and learning my craft. To get to be able to play three, four hours a night of original material is the most extraordinary feeling. And everybody singing along.”
“This Graffiti U Tour was so much work putting it on, getting it up and running, but then it just became the most euphoric experience night after night when everybody was singing along with all these new songs,” he continued. “That’s probably the most incredible feeling. And I almost want to say for me the spirit of commonality is really what’s at the center of our concerts. It’s finding that thing that we all have in common, and for me right now, it’s never been more important times because there’s so much differences, so much diversity, different everything, and that’s cool, but the feeling of inclusiveness and finding all those things we got in common is, I think, that’s the real center spirit of our concerts.”
Urban will take his Graffiti U Tour to Australia later this month. Find dates at KeithUrban.net.
Photo Credit: Getty images / Jason Kempin
