Keith Urban Releases New Album 'HIGH' Following a Series of Surprise Performances

Thousands packed the streets of Broadway in downtown Nashville on Thursday to celebrate the release of Keith Urban’s new album HIGH. The concert, another in a series of pop-up shows that have seen Urban surprise crowds in Dallas, Chicago, Minneapolis, BNA Airport (in Nashville), Sydney, Brisbane and a Buc-ee’s parking lot in Alabama, lasted nearly 90-minutes and featured first-time performances of songs from HIGH which is available now.

 Urban has spent much of the past several months releasing music from HIGH - “STRAIGHT LINE,” “GO HOME W U” (with Lainey Wilson), “WILDSIDE,” “HEART LIKE A HOMETOWN,” and the album’s current single “MESSED UP AS ME.” Urban’s first album in nearly four years, HIGH is a musical journey, intentionally sequenced through themes of what it is to be alive, human connection, cutting loose, huge hook choruses, hope, nostalgia, shredding solos, straight-up fun, and some personal life revelations. Critics have called the songs “sexy and playful, rowdy and sobering”, and one called the album Urban’s “most diverse - intensely personal, good-time windows-down, filthy and heartbreaking.”

“Of all the things that have changed in my life, one has been a constant. I love making music,” said Urban. “It’s the mystery and the energy of it.  I’ve never surfed, but I have a feeling that when I’m writing a song, or when I’m in the studio recording it, or even when it’s coming to life on stage, it’s the same feeling of being ‘in the flow’. It’s timeless, it’s weightless - and I feel HIGH.  These songs flowed very much like that.” 

This surprise stop in Nashville is one of the many that have taken place over the course of the past several weeks.  In addition to his pop-up and club shows and driving excursions, by the end of the month Urban will have stopped in Sydney, Brisbane, Nashville, Los Angeles, Las Vegas, New York and Toronto for national television appearances, digital content and collaborations, podcasts and network television specials.

Tomorrow night Urban will perform live in Las Vegas at the iHeart Festival, which airs live on Hulu, before heading to New York to appear on “The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon” (Sept. 24) and “The Kelly Clarkson Show” (Sept. 26th) before heading back to Nashville on September 26 to perform live on “The People’s Choice Country Awards” on NBC. 

Urban opens his “KEITH URBAN’S HIGH in Vegas”, ten exclusive performances at Fontainebleau Las Vegas on October 4th.  Additional shows are scheduled for October 5, 9, 11-12, February 2025 on February 14-15, 19, 21-22. 

Photo Credit: John Shearer

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