Magnetic live performer delivers Keith Urban entertains more than 9,000 fans at Canada Life Centre By: Eva Wasney Posted: 11:43 PM CDT Tuesday, Sep. 16, 2025 Last Modified: 11:50 PM CDT Tuesday, Sep. 16, 2025

Unlike many of his younger contemporaries, Keith Urban doesn’t trade in twangy ballads about hard boozing and pickup trucks. At least not exclusively.

The New Zealand-born, Nashville-based country artist has instead built a career on buoyant, pop-adjacent songs about nostalgia, head-over-heels love and (lightly) scorned love. Urban is a romantic through and through.

He’s also a magnetic live performer.

On Tuesday, nearly 10,000 Winnipeg fans — more than a few sporting cowboy hats — sidled up to Canada Life Centre to catch the four-time Grammy Award-winning artist on his High and Alive World Tour in support of his latest studio album, High.

Urban, 57, appeared silhouetted behind a tall curtain, which dropped to reveal the artist and his five-piece band bouncing around a deceptively simple stage.

During the opening number, Straight Line, a drop ceiling of LED panels lowered over Urban and flashed with traces of headlights before shifting gears to a wash of white light for the hard-rocking track, Where the Blacktop Ends.

The roughly two-hour show made creative use of the full spectrum of stage lighting technology, from pulsing strobes to colourful spotlights to a giant disco ball. The ever-changing effects created drama and intimacy without relying too heavily on screens.

Five minutes in, Urban paused the music to riff with the audience and deliver a few happy birthday’s in his bubbly Kiwi accent.

Wearing a tight black V-neck tee and equally tight black pants, he promised those in attendance a night of entertaining escapism and teased a future sojourn to a small satellite stage at the opposite end of the arena — both of which elicited big cheers.

Urban and his signature blond shag kept the earnest, celebratory party going with a string of hits upbeat and down-tempo, past and present; including Long Hot Summer (2010), You Look Good in My Shirt (2002) and Messed Up As Me (2024).

Urban, who is married to Oscar-winning actor Nicole Kidman, last performed in Winnipeg in 2014. He’s released less new music over the last decade but has continued to rack up the accolades and opportunities, including being inducted into Nashville Songwriters Hall of Fame in 2023 and starring alongside Blake Shelton in The Road, a new reality music competition premiéring on Paramount+ in October.

Collaborator P!nk made a virtual, pre-recorded appearance on One Too Many, during which Urban trekked through the crowd to the teeny-tiny B-stage, where he performed an acoustic cover of Chappell Roan’s Pink Pony Club, gave away his guitar and got briefly mobbed on his way back to the main stage for Blue Ain’t Your Color.

The concert wrapped as it started, with Urban shredding on his guitar while a rapt crowd sang and clapped along.

Tuesday’s show opened with a trio of up-and-coming American country artists.

Karley Scott Collings was first up to bat with a short, edgy set full of squealing electric guitars, earthy vocals and new material from her debut album, Flight Risk, set to be released in late September.

Alana Springsteen (no relation to Bruce) followed with more twang and higher energy. She won over the crowd with confident banter between jammy originals from her 2023 breakout album, Twenty Something, and likely gained a few new fans when she donned a Winnipeg Jets jersey and downed a shot with a ticketholder.

Chase Matthews carried the rising energy through to the main event. The bespectacled Tennessee native performed at the Park Theatre last fall and marked his arena return with hits, such as Darlin’ and Pull Up, alongside punchy covers designed to get the audience singing along. And sing they did.

eva.wasney@winnipegfreepress.com