Behind The Scenes At John Mayer And Keith Urban’s Crossroads

Last Tuesday night a couple hundred lucky folks packed Franklin, Tennessee’s Liberty Hall to catch the latest taping of CMT’s Crossroads. If you aren’t familiar with the show, the name is pretty self-explanatory—the network, famous for its coverage of all things country music, brings together two stars, one within the country realm and another who’s usually not as familiar with ten-gallon hats and Waylon Jennings’ back catalog.

This specific taping brought together Keith Urban and John Mayer, two musicians who have a lot more in common than first meets the eye (or ear)—they’re both accomplished guitar slingers, both known for their songwriting and, more importantly, they’re both into actresses (Urban’s currently married to Nicole Kidman, while John Mayer is known for his tumultuous non-relationship with Jennifer Aniston).

Over the course of the evening, Urban and Mayer played “If I Ever Could Love,” “Til Summer Comes Around,” “Tonight I Wanna Cry” and “Sweet Thing” from Keith’s catalog, as well as “Perfectly Lonely,” “Slow Dancing in a Burning Room,” “Say” and “Gravity” from Mayer’s. In between songs, the two seemed like old friends, joking about each others’ makeup and breaking into impromptu jams of songs like Johnny Cash’s “Folsom Prison Blues” and the theme from Pink Panther (which, believe it or not, seemed fairly logical at the time). They closed out the night with an unexpected duet on George Michael’s “Faith,” which, despite being far from a country song, was a real crowd-pleaser.

Urban and Mayer showed a great deal of respect for one another, and didn’t make any effort to hide it from the audience. Mayer, who’s famous for not being able to keep his mouth shut, especially sang Urban’s praises, repeatedly exclaiming his excitement to share the stage with Urban, who “wasn’t just a pretty face.”

Other famous, pretty faces in the audience included Kix Brooks (of Brooks & Dunn), Jake Owen, Love & Theft’s Eric Gunderson and country’s current “it-girl” and recent Grammy winner Taylor Swift, who danced and sang along to every song.

An airdate for Crossroads has not been announced yet.