The first time I saw Keith Urban play, I was in a hotel conference room with about 50 people. On Saturday, I was one of 13,000 fans singing along on the last night of his world tour.
I get goosebumps when I think about that day in 2005, knowing he was tiptoeing along the edge of super stardom while I ate my box lunch. At the time, I was running a radio promotions company and attended a conference annually where up-and-coming acts performed their tunes live for radio execs, hoping to sway them to play their songs. It’s a tough crowd; they’ve seen it all.
But when Keith Urban took the stage that day – a tiny platform only big enough to fit him and two members of his band on chairs – the energy in the room suddenly shifted. He was a charming, genuine, talented guy with a guitar and big dreams {and an adorable Australian accent} who played his heart out. I’m not a huge country music fan, but my colleagues and I were smitten right away. And I admit it: we giggled like schoolgirls when he later walked by us in the hall.
He just had that special something – that it factor – and by the end of his set, all those jaded radio execs at their round luncheon tables were tapping their toes. Though he’d had some success in the U.S., he was nowhere near a household name at the time. I remember someone asking Keith for thoughts on the rumors swirling about a romance between him and actress Nicole Kidman. He smiled, said he’d met her at an awards show that year and that she was clearly way out of his league.
Wouldn’t it have been fun on that day, six years ago, to whisper in his ear that all his dreams were about to come true? He got the girl {he married Nicole a year later}, he rose above his past problems with addiction, and he became one of music’s biggest stars. He wasn’t an overnight success, for sure; he worked and prayed and played like crazy for many years. But Keith Urban’s incredible success over these past few years proves nice guys don’t always finish last and that dreams do, indeed, come true.
