Backstage Country

LISTEN LIVE

Keith Urban Recalls Strange Gig At Baggage Claim

Keith Urban appeared on The Late Show With James Corden on CBS and shared a story of one of the strangest places he and his band ever played. The “gig”…

Keith Urban Recalls Strange Gig At Baggage Claim
Rob Kim/Getty Images

Keith Urban appeared on The Late Show With James Corden on CBS and shared a story of one of the strangest places he and his band ever played. The "gig" took place about 20 years ago.

Keith said, "I don't know if it was the worst, but it was definitely the strangest [gig] — we played in an airport which doesn't sound horrible, except for the fact that it was a tiny regional airport in Australia."

He continued, "My manager at the time I think had done some very questionable deal to get us a couple of airline tickets, and we had a three-piece band," adding that the airport was so small that it only had one baggage carousel and then there was the stage, "You know the little carpeted area above the carousel where the bags come 'round....it's like an island thing above it, right? Yeah. That's where we had to play."

The gig did attract a few people, or did it? Urban laughed, "So we start playing, and a couple people came over, and they're checking out the music, and a few more people [gather], and I'm like, 'This actually is not a bad gig!' There's about 15 people getting into it. And the next minute...all the bags start coming out everyone got their luggage and they just all left. And we were playing to nobody."

Nancy Brooks has been working in the country music industry for almost 30 years. She has interviewed pretty much any country star you can think of. In the late 1990s, she started working with Dolly Parton. And yes, Nancy reports that Parton is as sweet as you would think. She loves her life in country music and has been backstage at every CMA Awards show since the late 1990s. Many of her stories are from her one-on-one interviews. She was there at the beginning of the incredible careers of many music superstars today, including Taylor Swift, Shania Twain, and Blake Shelton, and has interviewed them multiple times throughout the years.