First Avenue – K102 and The Fine Line present Keith Urban The Club Tour.

Review and photos by Kyle Hansen

Keith Urban announced a show on Friday, June 28th for Sunday night June 30 at The fine Line. As I looked at this I thought, “Okay, this is fake.”  Nope, it was real. So I was excited from the get go.

I have seen him a couple of times and he always puts on an amazing show. I first saw him at Country Fest and since then, I’ve seen him a couple of times. His musicianship and song writing is amazing. When the tickets went on sale, I was on the way home from The Rolling Stones in Chicago. Review is on our page. As my friend was driving, it gave me time to try and get tickets. Well, it did not work. I put my request in to cover the show thinking that there wasn’t a chance it was happening. But then I got approved to cover the show. Let the excitement begin. But before the show, I had to go cover F1rst Wrestling.  Check out another photo gallery on our page.

So after wrestling, I made my way downtown. I figured it would be busy, but got in very easily. For this show we were instructed to shoot from the soundboard. As most country artists do. I just wanted to make sure I got their early to get the best spot. Two other photographers were the only ones that showed up.

When I got there it was pretty empty, but knew it would fill up quick.  As it did. Now, it can get quite crazy in the Fine Line for shows.  But after everyone was got inside, it was quite comfortable to walk around in back. The Fine Line only holds six hundred and fifty people max. As the crowd came in, you could see how special this show was going to be because everyone was smiling from ear to ear. They all talked about how could this be happening.  Spirits were high.

Keith came on right at around 8:45 to an enormous eruption from the crowd. He addressed the crowd and basically said, “This is gonna be fun and we are gonna let the music do the talking.”

Now I am not a huge fan and don’t know what most of the song titles are.  But I ended up saying, “Oh yeah, I know that one” here and there throughout the evening. I love his guitar playing.  That is what I was there to see most. Plus, on shows like this, covers come into play all the time.  Not too mention, rare songs that most artists don’t play to the masses when out on tour. So I talked to the sound guy to see how Country Fest was as I used to be the photographer out there. He said it went great and it was cool to go from there to the club gig.

He told me he had a setlist of most of his songs.  Apparently, Keith was just going to pick whatever from the list to play. But the second song was when he was taking requests. People were also yelling out cover songs.  And yes, someone yelled “Freebird”. To this day it is still yelled.

He opened with an acoustic version of “Long Hot Summer” which everyone sang along with. Covers we got were “The Joker” from The Steve Miller Band, “Margaritaville” from Jimmy Buffett.  Others included, “Take it Easy” from the Eagles for a snippet, “Raspberry Beret” from Prince which he said he always wanted to do. “Flowers” from Miley Cyrus, “Eye of the Tiger” from Survivor, a Talking Heads snipet. It was just so fun to watch them create a great party from the small crowd. Of course all his hits were there, “‘Til Summer Comes Around”, “Where the Blacktop Ends”, “You’ll Think of Me”, “Blue Ain’t Your Color”, “Somebody Like You”, and closed with “Wasted Time”.

Overall, Minneapolis got to see one huge star in a little place. I would like to thank First Avenue for all the work they do to make these things happen. Also for all the help they provide. I can’t wait for the next big little show.