Keith Urban Honors Artists We Lost in 2018 with New Year’s Eve Medley

For the third year Keith Urban rang in the new year as the headliner for Music City Midnight: New Year’s Eve in Nashville. As the countdown to 2019 began, the singer performed a free show for fans at the Bicentennial Capitol Mall State Park.

Urban continued with a tradition he began during his first NYE headlining set where he honored the artists we lost over the past year with a special medley of songs. For his 2018 tribute the Australia native performed a variety of tunes, including Aretha Franklin’s “Respect,” The Cranberries’ “Zombie” for lead singer Dolores O’Riordan, Roy Clark’s “Rolling In My Sweet Baby’s Arms,” Avicii’s “Wake Me Up” and Lynyrd Skynyrd’s “Sweet Home Alabama” in honor of the late Ed King.

“The last few years we’ve played New Year’s Eve I’ve taken the opportunity to put together a medley of some of the people we’ve lost across the year and I’ve done it again this year. I’m gonna play a couple songs to just recognize a few of the people we have lost,” he said before kicking off the performance.

At the close of the medley, Urban was joined by fellow guitar aficionado, Peter Frampton, who was also on the bill for the New Year’s Eve show. The two went back and forth with a guitar riff-off for a special jam session.

Keith Urban and Peter Frampton; Photo credit: Ben Enos

This year’s Music City Midnight brought record attendance with event organizers estimating 175,000 to 200,000 people in the park.

Watch the medley in the video above…