Love, Pain & The Whole Crazy World Tour...

"I have so much at home to be thankful for; everyone that has supported me through the years, the warm embrace that we've received there," said Urban. "I fully intend to return the love the best way that I know how, with a kick-ass show."

And true to his word, Keith delivered on his promise at the first show of his Australian tour held at the Brisbane Entertainment Centre on Friday night (11-May-07).

It was a HFO* for the Power clan, with Mum, Jos, Michael & I in the audience. After meeting up @ Toombul for dinner (OK, truth be told, we were suppose to meet @ Paul's work, but we had a slight navigation issue), we headed out the BEC. Not surprisingly we got there nice and early and managed to get a pretty good car park. Our seats were in the second top row, and although they were up high, we were very close to the stage. (* HFO = Happy Family Outing)

I was pretty impressed with the warm-up act "The Waifs". They were really very good, but I'm sure that like me, everyone in the audience was there for Keith.

It was quite obvious that there were no age limit for his fans and it was apparent that his appeal ranges from the very young to the very young at heart. That being said, there were, unsurprisingly, some fairly tragic outfits worn by a number of concert goers. You have to wonder if these people actually look in the mirror before leaving the house? Someone surely forgot to tell one 40 something, that the little black lace number with the black bra underneath went out of fashion in the 90's...

From the main stage there was a catwalk that lead out to a small round stage. During the night Keith and the band made their way up the catwalk where they proceeded to play a few acoustic type numbers on the smaller stage. I bet those patrons towards the back of the room appreciated getting a much closer view of Keith, rather than looking at the big screen at the back of the main stage.

Just before the show started a small white dot appeared on the screen at the back of the stage - then as show time got closer it proceeded to grow larger and it eventually turned into an orange heart. With that the band hit the stage and the fun began.

Nicole slipped into the venue once the concert had started and watched her husband perform from the sound-deck near the the end of the catwalk, which was luckily on our side of the venue. At one point during the acoustic set on the 2nd stage, Keith looked down at Nicole and stuffed up the words to one of his songs. After apologising to the crowd he told us he was "distracted". How cute!

He played a lot from his new album, so Mum was very happy when he started to play some of his older stuff.

During the encore, Keith went out into the crowd and even made his way up into the elevated seating on the opposite side of the arena to our seats. The crowd went wild when he did a cover of the song by Dragon "Are You Old Enough". Everyone was singing alone and having lots of fun. Nicole and Keith's family took this opportunity to slip out of the venue, no doubt in order to be back stage when he finished the show.

Our great carpark was just as good when we were leaving, as we didn't have to wait at all, unlike previous times at BEC where I've sat in that ^$#*^ carpark for over an hour.

So all in all, it was a great night, and I'll keen to see Keith on his next visit home.



Set List

1. Once In A Lifetime
2. Where The Blacktop Ends
3. Faster Car
4. Shine
5. Raining On Sunday (catwalk solo)
6. Stupid Boy
7. You're My Better Half (catwalk by Keith and band)
8. Making Memories Of Us (catwalk end by all)
9. You'll Think Of Me (catwalk by all)
10. I Told You So (catwalk by all)
11. Days Go By
12. I Can't Stop Loving You
13. Tonight I'm Wanna Cry
14. Who Wouldn't Wanna Be Me
15. Somebody Like You (catwalk solo)

Encore
16. Got It Right This Time (Keith alone on stage)
(Especially dedicated to Nicole - Ah, how sweet!!!)
17. Better Life
18. Are You Old Enough (Dragon cover)
19. Everybody Needs Somebody.