Keith Urban is excited to launch the first leg of his Ripcord World Tour on June 2 in Kansas City, Mo.

How do we know? He told us at a recent rehearsal, where he invited a small group of fans and industry folk for a sneak peek. “I’m just ready to go,” Keith says excitedly. “I’m always anxious to see what is flowing in the set list. No matter how many times you’ve done this and how many tours we’ve done and how much I can look at a set list and feel like this is really going to work, you don’t know til you get out in front of everybody and we’ll tinker and change things around till we sort of hit upon the right rhythm and groove.”

Held in a private rehearsal hall at Bridgestone Arena in Nashville, Keith began the set with a rousing rendition of the the lead track off his Ripcord album, “Gone Tomorrow (Here Today).” The guitar-slinging Aussie wowed the crowd with songs like “Where the Blacktop Ends,” “Break on Me,” “Everybody Needs Somebody,” “You Better Believe” and “The Fighter.” Even though Carrie Underwood, who duets with Keith on “The Fighter,” wasn’t present, her voice played loudly over the speakers as if she were there in person. During the actual show, Carrie will be appearing on a large movie screen singing her part.

Keith also laid out some of the songs that we can expect to hear during the show. “We’ve got nine songs off of Ripcord,” he told the crowd. “We’re doing ‘Sun Don’t Let Me Down’ off the record, we’re doing ‘Blue Ain’t Your Color,’ we’re doing ‘Gettin’ in the Way,’ ‘Gone Tomorrow,’ ‘John Cougar, John Deere, John 3:16,’ not to be confused with ‘John Cougar, John Mayer, John 3:16,’ which is a very different song [laughing] and ‘That Could Still Be Us’—we’re gonna do that as well. So we’re working on a lot of things. I’m psyched to get on the road.”

And we’re psyched to see the show. Opening acts for the Ripcord World Tour are Brett Eldredge and Maren Morris. You can check out tour dates here.

Let’s pull this ripcord and watch him fly.

https://youtu.be/5jMx2fe2P3I