Keith Urban put his big heart on display for Irish fans and one lucky street musician over the weekend. He invited 14-year-old Sam Clifford onstage to sing for a packed 3Arena crowd in Dublin.
Urban explained that he was out for a walk before the night’s show – which was part of the multi-city C2C: Country to Country Festival – and happened across a busker playing for tips on the street. Remembering his earliest days as a musician when the future superstar would do the same thing, he stopped to listen.
“I just listened for a while and I loved his vibe and his spirit,” he told the Dublin crowd. “And I said ‘Do you want to come sit in with us tonight?’”
With that Clifford took the stage, leading Urban through a stripped-down rendition of English folk rocker George Ezra’s “Shotgun.” With Urban playing guitar and Clifford at the mic, the youngster soon had the whole audience singing along.
The show marked the end of Urban’s massive Graffiti U World Tour, which included his first trek through Europe in more than 10 years and his first-ever concerts in Berlin, Amsterdam, Glasgow, and Dublin. Visiting three continents in total, the tour played to more than 1 million fans.
Urban won’t be taking much time off, however. Soon after finishing the Dublin show he posted a thank-you video to Instagram, which included the revelation that he’s already working on new music, and will be “back in the studio this coming week.” Urban’s next shows will be a series of festival and fair dates, starting May 5th at SunFest in West Palm Beach, Florida.
