Keith Urban embraced a “euphoric” new chapter in his career when he took the stage on the second night of the 2024 iHeartRadio Music Festival presented by Capital One on Saturday (September 21). The country star’s performance arrives one day after he debuted his new 12-track record, HIGH . Urban performed some of his newest songs and mixed in a few career-spanning staples — and a notable lyric swap, nodding to the reigning CMA and ACM Entertainer of the Year — on the T-Mobile Arena stage in Las Vegas, Nevada.
Urban kicked off his set with “Straight Line,” the first track he released from his newest album. Earlier this year, he described it as “a song born of wanting to break out of routine and feeling like somewhere along the line, life lost some color and excitement.” That song, like Urban’s live performances, aim to offer listeners a “liberated feeling,” he previously said in a statement. The 2024 iHeartRadio Music Festival set also included renditions of “Wildside” and “Messed Up As Me,” which tells the story of a “dysfunctional” and “toxic” relationship. Urban delivered the debut live performance at the historic Ryman Auditorium in Nashville, Tennessee, and premiered a music video that captures the city’s night life on Lower Broadway.
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“Life is about contrasts – highs, lows, confidence, insecurity, love found, love lost, clarity, blurry, disciplined, and then the next minute, couldn’t care less. Sexy, warm summers and lonely, cold winters. This album flows with all of these in various ways,” Urban said in a statement, in part, when HIGH made its long-awaited debut on Friday (September 20). “Out of all of the things that have changed in my life, one has been a constant. I love making music. The feeling of writing a song that has real magic in it, bringing that song to life in the studio, and then playing it on stage and watching complete strangers sing every word. It’s like walking on the moon (not that I’ve done that YET, but an astronaut hasn’t stood on stage and shredded either so….) My desire is for the ‘flow state,’ and that’s what happened when we started this album HIGH. It just FLOWED and I feel the spirit of the whole album really reflects that. I hope you feel that too.”…