After a chat on Twitter of all things, 19-year-old Ellen Tefanis got the chance to play onstage with Keith Urban at the country star’s show in Brisbane, Australia. The pair played “Good Thing”, which is a deep cut from Urban’s Fuse album which is a favourite with fans due to its catchy guitar part.
Urban let Ellen take centre stage in performing not only the signature guitar intro, but also the high octane guitar solo, which she absolutely knocked out of the park. The teen shredder, who is from Port Pirie, South Australia, is a natural on stage and put on quite a show as well. Check out her performance with Urban below, which has been viewed more than seven million times across multiple uploads.
Ellen joined Urban onstage at the star’s final show on his Ripcord World Tour. He told the audience the origin of the collab, saying “I was doing a Twitter chat in Sydney, and I got a person who sent in a video of themselves playing guitar, and they said ‘I want to come and play for you’ and I said ‘come on.’”
Ellen, who picked up guitar at age 8, suggested the pair play “Good Thing” together. This probably came as no surprise to the country hit-maker, who had previously played the song with American fan Rob Joyce. After an invitation to come onstage, Joyce randomly started playing the intro to “Good Thing”, and despite the song not being on the tour setlist, Urban and the band launched into it and totally rocked it. You can judge which fan did it better after watching Joyce play it below.
Fans loved to hear Ellen slay it with Urban, adding comments such as “I think it’s awesome that they outfitted her with IEMs and made her part of the band for a song. How awesome is Keith and his crew for this?” and “You can’t help but like Keith Urban. He’s written some great songs but I think you see his true colours when he uses his warm personality and has crowd members come up for their 15 minutes of fame.”
Ellen has since entered the music industry herself with her debut single “More Than a Hat”, where she plays guitar and sings. While promoting the single she reflected on her viral video with Urban, saying “Keith is the reason why this is all happening as he was the one who encouraged me to start singing and becoming my own artist. Since then, I have been so focused on my original music, and I am so happy he gave me that nudge to become an artist myself.”
The song, which is available on her YouTube channel, features a memorable guitar solo from Ellen in the bridge, so fans of her video with Urban will find plenty to love here as well. The song was originally written by local songwriter Brian R. Sickles and titled “Cowboy (More Than A Hat)”, although Ellen and her father George have since renamed it and rearranged the music.