Keith Urban won't let anything- not even the coronavirus pandemic- stand between him and his fans.
After a handful of livestream shows, the country star decided to mix it up and perform a drive-in concert at the Stardust Drive-In in Watertown, Tennessee. In a recent interview following the concert, Urban talked about the unique experience and his hope to do it again in the future.
"The thing that took the longest was just making sure protocols and guidelines, which were ever changing, weekly if not daily, to make sure we were checking all the right boxes and doing things the right way but at the same time not letting all of those things cause us to just go, ’It’s just too difficult. Let’s just abandon the idea. Because there's just got to be a way," he explained.
Before the show, Urban says he expected it to be more of a traditional drive-in set up, however, it ended up resembling more of a tailgate party.
"What I thought was gonna happen was I'd be playing to a bunch of people in cars in the traditional drive-in form, having not been to a drive in a long, long time. I didn't realize most everyone brings pick-up trucks and they backed the pick-up truck," he said. "So it actually resembled a tailgate party more than a drive in. And I thought, well, that's really what we're doing. Our fans have been doing tailgate parties forever before the concert. The only thing that's changed is the tailgate party will now be the concert. We'll just bring the stage out to them. They can just hang where they are."
When asked if he was looking to do more similar shows in the future, Urban responded, "yeah, absolutely," going on to share how it's already been happening in several other countries around the world.
He adds, "But I think the [country] genre is built for it because of the tailgate party ethos that we already have naturally built into our audience. So they're, they're used to being in and around their cars with music cranked and kind of getting their own parking lot party going on. So I think that that's very, very doable. Like I could perceive massive parking lots potentially at stadiums where you’ve got thousands and thousands of cars."
At this time, there are no official drive-in shows scheduled, however, for Urban, not playing is simply not an option. "We’re going to figure it out," he says in regards to touring. "I'm not going to stay home!"
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