Keith Urban Throws a Drive-In Theater Concert for Health Care Workers
“That massive drive-in screen, all you have to do is put a stage in front of it and you’re off and running,” says Urban of the Nashville-area gig Keith Urban performed a secret show at a Tennessee drive-in theater for health care workers.
The future of live events has been one of the big question marks for the entertainment industry during the COVID-19 pandemic, with very little certainty about when things will return to some kind of “normal.” On Thursday night (May 14), Keith Urban offered up a possible glimpse at what the intermediate stages may look like, performing a secret show for health care workers at the Stardust Drive-In in Watertown, Tennessee, that entertained while keeping people safe inside their cars.
Urban and his team reached out to LiveNation concert promoter Brian O’Connell with the idea — “What he and LiveNation did last night was extraordinary,” Urban says — and got to work. They distributed car passes to Nashville’s Vanderbilt University Medical Center to give out to the hospital’s doctors, nurses, and other staff, in what Urban says was a show of gratitude for “the sacrifices they’ve been making for months.” “Right now, those are the people we need to acknowledge the strongest,” Urban says, “and last night was such a great opportunity to do that.”
How long ago did you
start planning the drive-in show?
Probably about a month
ago. The idea for the drive-in was a no-brainer because of the car situation.
Playing to people in cars was really the baseline of it. And the fact that
drive-ins still exist? Who knew, man? I knew there were a handful of them
around, but not to the extent that I started discovering them everywhere
I was reading that
there’s been an increase in business at drive-ins because of the
pandemic, since we can’t really do the things we normally do.
Totally. And obviously
from a performance standpoint, and what our requirements were — How do we play
to people in cars? Who’s going to organize how the cars are all spaced out? How
do we know the cars have good views? And the drive-in is built for every one of
those questions. And then you add in the fact that pretty much every live
performance you go see has a massive video wall behind the stage, well, hello,
video screen! That massive drive-in screen, all you have to do is put a stage
in front of it and you’re off and running.
How are you setting up
for audio in that space?
We chose the Stardust
Drive-In because … it’s not a big drive-in. We couldn’t play to a massive
drive-in yet, because this was a proof-of-concept show. We needed minimal
production in order to keep the crew minimal. So the PA was fairly small, the
lighting was small, the crew was small. I had two musicians onstage, 10 feet
apart from me, one of which is my track guy, Jeff Linsenmaier. He had dueling
laptops up there and was somewhat of a DJ/EDM guy playing tracks. It was almost
like karaoke, so we could have full tracks being played without there being
drums, bass, and all those guys onstage. Then I obviously played guitar and
sang. And I added in my keyboard player, Nathan Barlowe, who also plays a bit
of guitar and he sings, and we were able to create a fairly good full wall of
sound with just the three of us.
Is there a way that you
could expand this show to be a full-band situation?
I think it’s [all about]
how many crew are needed to make this thing happen that you’re seeing. So when
you’ve got a drum kit with a bunch of mics and a bunch of different things,
everything starts to go up exponentially, versus having a guy who’s got
everything on tracks. But to your point, as we move forward, bringing in the
band is something I would love to do. Particularly with the way I play, because
I’m very free-flowing. The problem with tracks is you’re a little bit stuck to
a set structure of songs, and I like to flow and jam a little bit, go with the
moment. It’s hard to do with track stuff. Although we have figured that out as
well; we have a way to edit these tracks on the fly [laughs].
Can you tell me a little more about how that works?
Thank goodness we’ve been doing this for a while, because it’s come in real handy right about now. And I also think we’re well past audiences standing there going, “Hey, wait a minute, I don’t think the keyboard I’m hearing is actually onstage.” Whatever. There are people onstage, they’re really playing. The person singing is really singing. They’re really playing. They’re really in front of me. It sounds great. What’s the problem? That ability to play in that mode has come in handy right now. So what we’ve been doing with tracks is my track guy has these two laptops onstage and he has all the tracks, but he’s edited them in such a way where he can extend choruses, verses, intros, and he can do it in real time, which is amazing. So if I feel like we need to break down here and go for a long guitar solo, he can do it. He just keeps looping pieces in real time. It’s crazy.
It feels very prescient.
It’s bizarre. “Irony”
feels like an insensitive word in this context. But the reason for that title
was we’d just been touring internationally and I literally feel like everywhere
I go in the world, humans, everything is just going faster and faster. We
travel further and further. Everything is just insane and going faster and
faster. We’re just human beings trying to keep up with this computer in our
pockets. There’s a real evolutionary struggle going on between humanity and
technology, there’s no question about it, as we barrel toward the singularity.
I thought, what’s the endgame? Where are we going? It also felt like the
present moment, the now — which is meant to be freer time — even feels like
it’s got a speed. That’s the most sad irony of all. So The Speed of Now was
the title that really fit my latest record.
Credit for this interview goes to Jon Freeman Editor, Rolling Stone Country
Garth Brooks to Broadcast Drive-In Concert Event One-night-only performance will screen at 300 theaters in North America Garth Brooks will perform a one-night-only concert to screen at 300 drive-in theaters.
Garth Brooks will return to performing live later this month, but instead of packing stadiums, the veteran entertainer’s June 27th concert event will screen at more than 300 outdoor theaters in the U.S. and Canada on the same day. Produced by Encore Live, the show — performed in Nashville, according to a rep — will adhere to guidelines recommended by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) as well as all state and local health mandates, with procedures for staff and fans established by leading health professionals.
The general admission tickets for the one-night-only concert (rain or shine) will go on sale Friday, June 19th, at 12:00 p.m/9 a.m. PT via Ticketmaster. For $100, each ticket will admit one passenger car or truck. A list of local drive-in theaters will be available at the time of ticket purchase. The concert will begin at dusk.
“I am so excited to get to play again. I have missed it so much and want to get back to it,” Brooks says in a release. “This drive-in concert allows us all to get back to playing live music without the uncertainty of what would be the result to us as a community. This is old school, new school, and perfect for the time we are in.”
“Necessity is the mother of invention.” A need or problem encourages creative efforts to meet the need or solve the problem. This saying appears in the dialogue Republic, by the ancient Greek philosopher Plato.
In my most cynical view, the drive in concerts is just another way for promoters to try and pick up a little cash from the failing live concert industry, but on the positive side, it may be an interesting concept that may keep entertainment alive for its fans until things return to normal (maybe in our lifetime 😊