Thomas Rhett well and truly loves the UK, this being his
third year running of touring this side of the pond. Each year, the venue has
got bigger with the Eventim Apollo hosting the London date of his Life Changes
Tour. The gig started earlier than most would, but this was because we had not
one but two opening acts.
First up was Danielle Bradbery, who I liked from the moment
she came on stage and greeted us all with a cheery “how’s everybody doing?”
This was a smaller setup than the last time I’d seen her play at The Long Road
Festival (you can read my review here) as she was backed only by an acoustic guitar,
keyboard and snare drum.
She began with Can’t
Stay Mad, before expressing her gratitude for having a fan base in the UK
to come back to so often. This genuine interaction with the crowd became
something that she did after every single song and I was impressed by
just how much she not only wanted to put on a great show but engage with the
crowd too.
She showed off her flawless vocals on What Are We Doing and what she called her most real song off of
latest album I Don’t Believe We’ve Met,
Messy. I was actually surprised that she hadn’t been higher up the bill on
the tour as I would personally consider her a bigger star than other opener
Devin Dawson; although perhaps the tour organisers had wanted Devin to have
more of a chance to break the UK as he hasn’t played the UK as much.
Nevertheless, I could’ve listened to Danielle sing all night long.
We moved onto the ever so catchy Sway, throughout which she held out her microphone to hear the
audience sing, and treated us to a fan request in the form of Heart of Dixie to prove that she does
still play her old songs. She regaled us with the story behind current single Goodbye Summer which had been rerecorded
featuring Thomas Rhett in order to be released as a single. She sweetly told us
to sing along if we knew the words, and if we didn’t, well we could just make
them up!
As she sang, she was joined unexpectedly by the man himself,
and the look of happiness on her face as he sang with her told it all – there’s
a video on my Twitter @CiarasCountry to prove it! This was a very special
moment for us all as the two of them performing this live is quite a rare
occurrence.
She finished her too-short set with Worth It to send a positive message to all of us in the audience.
In my humble opinion, she has one of the best voices in the business, and is a
force to be reckoned with. I look forward to seeing her perform many times in
the future.
After the interval, ‘the man in black’ Devin Dawson came on
stage with a much bigger setup than Danielle, having brought his full band on
tour with him. The vibe was vastly different from Danielle as we started with
the rocky War Paint and Dip, in which he certainly sounded
pretty persuasive as he sang ‘So we’re gonna hightail out of her / To tell with
trying to tell them goodbye’
He whirled round the stage like a rockstar before slowing it
down briefly for the sexy Symptoms and
then bringing it up for Prison, a
song he dedicated to “all of you Metalheads out there – you know who you are” –
I’m not sure exactly how many of those there were in the audience…
There was quite the contrast between the previous act as he
moved from song to song with little break, presumably trying to squish as many
songs into forty-five minutes as he could to give new listeners the best chance
to get to know his style. As he played another rocky song, Placebo, I felt that his music for the most part was not
particularly country and whilst he’d be a great fit for another genre of music,
he was an interesting choice for this tour.
I had to bite back my words as he told us about a song he
wrote about apologising without saying sorry, Asking For A Friend, which was considerably more country and one that
I enjoyed a lot more. During these country songs, he also seemed to open up to
the audience a bit more as he told us about getting into songwriting after
having had his heart broken as a means to say what he couldn’t say in
conversation, which had inspired Secondhand
Hurt.
Next up was the song I’d been waiting to hear – All On Me. Now if all of Devon’s songs
were like this and the two prior, I would be a megafan, as I’m sure would many
of the other country fans in the audience. He finished with the most important
and autobiographical song he’d written, Dark
Horse. It was good to see that vulnerability and realness that makes
country so special, if only just for a moment.
Now where do I begin with Thomas Rhett? He is something else
entirely and if you haven’t heard his music yet, I strongly encourage you to
give it a listen. It certainly wasn’t an understated entrance as strobe lights
flashed along to the beginning beats of Leave
Right Now before Thomas ran on stage to screams that could’ve torn the roof
off.
He was clearly keen to get the rocky songs out of the way as
he moved on to T Shirt, hyping up the
already hyped crowd. I was delighted to hear some of the songs I’d loved on his
Life Changes record like Renegades performed life, and can assure
you that he is one of the few who sounds even better live than on stereo. Three
songs in and I was already writing down in my reviewers notebook ‘Now THIS is a
show!’
We had a throwback to Get
Me Some Of That before he showed off just how much of a partyman he is
during the Uptown Funk Country Gold,
leaning into the audience and showing off some pretty impressive dance moves.
We had another throwback with Make Me
Wanna before he told us about his good friend Maren Morris (who really should be playing a venue
as big as the Apollo when she returns to the UK next week rather than the tiny
Omeara!) before singing Craving You.
I was half hoping (Ryan Hurd reference for you Maren fans there) that he’d
surprise us by bringing Maren on stage like he’d done for Danielle, but alas,
not today.
He moved onto the cutesy Star
of the Show which worked stylistically very well with Life Changes which received thusfar the biggest cheer of the night.
He stopped before the third verse to tell us the story of adopting a little girl
from Uganda just months before his wife unexpectedly gave birth to another
baby, leading to two under two and no doubt a lot of sleepless nights! This
autobiographical song is so well written and another great example of country
differentiating itself from other genres with the truth it tells.
We had another special moment as Thomas revealed that he
would play us a new song for literally the first time ever. This two was
inspired by his kids and how no matter how old they got, he’d always remember
them young, hence the title Remember You
Young. This slow and sweet song was accompanied just by the piano, offering
us a sneak peek into his next album which can’t come soon enough.
This ballady atmosphere continued with If I Could Have A Beer With Jesus and the last slow song of the set
– his ‘What If’ song when he wasn’t sure if he would get back together with
then girlfriend Lauren, and thought about what it would be like having to see
her marry someone else. The result was my favourite song of his, Marry Me, to which he certainly did
justice as I felt the tears prickling my eyes.
We picked up the pace with It Goes Like This (cue more dancing) and current single Sixteen which pretty much summed up
everyone’s experiences of growing up and wishing we were just a little bit
older. Heck, I’m still counting on my thirties to be when I’ll finally have my
life all figured out, and hopefully a thriving blogging business beneath my
belt…
What a fun time we had for Unforgettable as Thomas worked the stage marvellously and then
wowed the crowd by taking to a drum kit that was wheeled on stage and doing his
own solo. Did anyone know he was a talented drummer? It almost made me regret
giving up the drums years ago now that I know I could have had something in
common with Thomas Rhett!
The main set finished with Vacation and an introduction to his talented band, including Frank
the saxophonist, something you wouldn’t normally see at a country concert! He
didn’t keep us waiting long and returned to sing Die A Happy Man to ear-splitting screams. As if this wasn’t enough,
a couple in the pit literally got engaged to this song, causing Thomas to
invite them on stage and sing to them as they slow-danced together. I mean,
could you ask for a more unique proposal? We finished with the high energy Crash And Burn – great fun but something
I’m sure we don’t wish on the happy couple! I’ve been to a fair few concerts
recently and they’ve all been a blast – 2019, the bar is high!
I hope you enjoyed today's review - I'd love to know what you thought, so drop me a message in the comments below or on Twitter @CiarasCountry! If there's any other music related content you'd like to see, drop me a line, and make sure to stay tuned for more reviews and interviews coming soon - thanks for reading!
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