Keith Urban's heartfelt birthday gift reflects his musical journey

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This is Keith Urban wiping away tears as he sets to put eyes on a very personal birthday gift. >> It's so tiny, though. [laughter] >> Spoiler alert, it's not tiny. Subscribers to this channel know that we don't make you watch 90% of a video just to figure out the answer to a question that the title beckons. So, I'll tell you right now, it's a guitar, but the story of the guitar and the artist who designed it are what's important here. As is the person who gave him this very personal present, and it's here that we'll offer the new information shared in our original post on Taste of Country. You may have already seen the what, but the what's it mean comes in this video. Keith Urban's birthday was October 26th, and this year he turned 58 years old, which means I'm don't worry about it. Singer Chase Matthew presented Keith with an early gift ahead of the show at Bridgestone Arena in Nashville on October 17th. You might know Chase from songs like Love You Again or Darling. call you? Why does he call [music] you? [singing] >> He's currently got a song with Lauren Elena on the radio called All My Ex's, but for the sake of our video, you need to know he was the opening act for Keith's fall 2025 High and Alive tour. And during a recent interview with Taste of Country, he shared some really fun Keith Urban stories that we'll get to at the very end of this video. So, hold on there. First, here's Keith gushing on him. Thank you to all of you guys for [music] um just bringing the right spirit. Like that's all it is. At the start of video shared to Chase's social media, he thanked Keith for everything he did for him. And then cue the video presentation. A cultural designer named Sam Manga Kahia designed this gift. Sam is from Aahu, but he was born in Australia. >> And this piece I've titled The Rise of the Phoenix. Um, it covers a lot of different things and it touches on your your [music] family, things that are important to you, your music, polarity in design, culture, where you grew up. >> His goal was to honor Keith's legacy and the way he inspired thousands of people, >> and your fearlessness of attacking your dreams, and that's huge. [music] >> The guitar is piece number 30 with Jelly Roll and Post Malone receiving the two prior. And now the big reveal. >> Oh goodness. >> Oh my gosh, man. >> Gorgeous. >> Wow. [applause] >> It's breathtaking. >> When you see how it was all created, you'll begin to further appreciate why this guitar is so special. Chase shared this video on his social media on Keith's birthday. And one day later, the artist Sam Manga Kahia shared the process video on his social media channels. You can see he begins with pencil on what looks like something similar to contact paper, but surely more tactile. It was his first time working on a Gibson guitar, and he said that was a challenge. You can see he really uses a handheld engraver here to make marks along the top coat. Okay, here is the story of the piece. I'll quit talking. Let's begin with this detailed spiral. It represents his spiritual connection inspired by the stern post on the moldy walker. Right here is the head of the phoenix representing passion and vision. The rest of the design is the dance. The push and pull of life that Keith transforms into beautiful melody engraved on the back close to his heart when he plays are his precious daughters. This is piece number 30. On the innermost part is inlaid power representing enlightenment. Wait, hold on. Can we go back to that part about Keith's daughters? Sunday Rose and Faith Margaret's name are on it. And I mean, listen, this just has to mean something special, especially given all that Keith is going through at the moment. I really encourage you to watch Sam's full video on Instagram. I went ahead and linked to it in the description section of this video. He's a pretty cool artist, and there's some concepts about the making of this guitar that I really only touched on because I didn't really feel comfortable talking about it without doing a little bit more background research. Also remarkable to me is this is not the order of how things usually work on a country tour. During our original interviews on this channel, we always ask new artists what gifts they receive from a headliner, and that's provided some really absolute gems. We've had unique weapons, guitars, vehicles, those are all standard. But here's Chase's answer. After the Jason Aldine tour, >> Jason got me a Rolex. Um, custom Rolex with uh the tour engraved in the back of it and stuff like that. Me and Austin Snell, he gave us those. Those were really cool. I've never had a Rolex. I didn't even know what it was. That Chase was so moved by his experience. Opening for Keith that he gave Keith a gift. Speaks to that relationship and Keith as a mentor and friend. Listen, that's rare in country music and just life. Last month, Chase did visit with Taste of Country to talk about his experience opening for Keith Urban. And maybe the one thing I learned is that Keith, he's sort of like Taylor Swift in Australia. >> It's Keith Urban. He's royalty over there, man. You walk around like that. People, you know, you walk through the airport, right, in in Australia, cuz we were flying to each one. You can't you can't drive a bus over there, right? So, uh we're uh not I mean, you could drive a bus there. you just can't take my bus over there cuz but uh >> but yeah, you're in the airport and people are like are y'all a band? We're like yeah and they're like what's your band? We're like Chase Matthew. They're like okay. And then we go we're with Keith Urban and they're like oh my god oh my god what's he [laughter] like? What's Nicole Kidman like? What was you know it's like it's like dude people freak out. It's really >> Yeah, it's pretty cool. >> I'm Billy Dukes for Taste of Country. Thanks for watching and thanks for subscribing.