Keith Urban is returning to the Arizona Country Thunder festival stage this weekend for the first time in 15 years.
2010 was the last time we saw him on the Florence festival stage, and that was only his second time there. The first was 1999, when he quietly introduced himself during a middle-of-the-afternoon bright-sunlight set, the kind where you’re lucky if a couple hundred people are there to see you.
Aussie country singer Keith Urban makes his return to Country Thunder Arizona on Friday, April 11 — his first Country Thunder show here since 2010.
The 2010 show was his marquee headliner debut and he played before a crowd of about 16,000. He’s sure to have at least double that when he takes the stage at 10 p.m. Friday, April 11.
The four-day Country Thunder Festival runs Thursday, April 10, through Sunday, April 13, at Canyon Moon Ranch, 20585 E. Water Way in Florence. Four-day general admission passes are $326.24; single-day tickets are $166.20 through countrythunder.com/az; camping is sold out.
Nolan Sotillo opens for Keith Urban on Friday. He was an opener at the 2022 festival, when he got a fist bump from a fan while working the catwalk.
Urban joins a lineup that kicks off with Riley Green (“There Was This Girl,” “Worst Way”) at 10 p.m. Thursday, following openers Tucker Wetmore and Drew Green; and Hardy (“Up Down,” “One Big Country Song,” “Wait In the Truck”) at 10 p.m. Saturday, returning as a headliner after opening for his buddy Morgan Wallen in 2022.
That year went down as one of the festival’s most interesting in its 30 years in Arizona. Hardy’s and Wallen’s music blurs the genre divide with its hip-hop influences and rock edge, and with hip-hop country singer Blanco and Canadian pop-country singer Mackenzie Porter as openers, the show felt and looked more like an arena rock show than country.
Bailey Zimmerman (“Rock and A Hard Place,” “Religiously”) closes out the festival at 9 p.m. Sunday.
Ricky Reyes and Victoria Smith did their own boot scoot at the 2022 Country Thunder, which returns this weekend in Florence.
In addition to Wetmore and Green, opening acts include Nolan Sotillo, Owen Riegling, Dillon Carmichael, Sara Evans and Justin Moore on Friday; Nice Horse, Bayker Blankenship, The Kentucky Headhunters, Chayce Beckham and Ashley McBryde on Saturday; and Angie K, Josh Ross, Ashley Cooke and Jake Owen on Sunday.
Country singer-rapper Blanco Brown got the audience at the 2022 Country Thunder festival doing the two-step when he performed on a lineup that included Morgan Wallen and Hardy.
