Keith Urban Plans Special Shows for ‘Ripcord’ Release

Keith Urban’s summer tour doesn’t officially kick off until June 2nd, nearly a month after his new album Ripcord hits stores. To celebrate the release in a timelier fashion, though, the singer will hit the road this week for a string of one-off launch events in three cities.

First up is a May 4th performance at New York City’s Stage 48. Built in the 1950s as a horse stable, Stage 48 will feature the live premiere of many Ripcord songs, whose mix of synth pads, drum loops and organic instrumentation finds Urban picking up where 2013’s genre-jumping Fuse left off. The show will also be broadcast that same evening on Tidal.com, which premiered Beyonce’s Lemonade last month.

During the week following Ripcord‘s May 6th release, Urban will return to Nashville for a free show outside of Nashville’s Bridgestone Arena on Monday, May 9th. Scheduled for 12 p.m. CT, the gig will set the stage for Urban’s full hometown performance on November 11th, when he returns to the Bridgestone with opening acts Maren Morris and Brett Eldredge. Following the May 9th set, Urban will fly to Los Angeles for the following day’s showcase at the Grammy Museum. The 200-capacity show will be held inside the Clive Davis Theater, with an Inside the Actor’s Studio-influenced format organized by moderator (and Grammy Foundation Vice President) Scott Goldman.

With cameos by Pitbull, Chic’s Nile Rodgers and upcoming tour partner Carrie Underwood, Ripcord finds Urban reaching beyond country music’s borders without alienating the genre that helped launch his career. “This is way more than I’ve ever cut before,” Urban told Rolling Stone Country earlier this spring, referencing the nearly two dozen songs that were tracked during Ripcord‘s 15-month recording sessions. “It was a lot of searching, a lot of experimenting, and when you get to work with as many people as I did, you end up with a lot of stuff.”