Concert Review: C2C COUNTRY 2 COUNTRY 2018 (Day 1), The O2, London

The O2 became somewhat of a second home for me this past weekend, as it always does around March time each year. The reason? The sixth edition of C2C Country 2 Country Festival – the UK’s largest country music festival which attracts some of the biggest artists in the genre from both the UK and the States, and as many country fans as the O2 can hold.

My weekend really began on Thursday evening with a trip to the CMA Songwriters Series (the review of which you can read here) and continued on Friday evening. Whilst the festival technically started at 2pm that day with performances from the Wandering Hearts, Morgan Evans, and High Valley; I was required to finish my ‘real job’ (still not a full time blogger yet!) and so arrived in time for a quick interview with performer Clara Bond (interview coming soon!) before heading into the Arena to catch the end of Old Dominion’s opening set.

I was thrilled the band had made their way back to C2C, having first seen them at the Bluebird Café in 2016 and on the Radio 2 Stage that same year. They were the perfect choice to kick off the festival, getting the party started from the get-go with a mix of songs from their debut and sophomore albums. It’s impossible not to get up and sing along to songs like No Such Thing As A Broken Heart and their breakthrough single Break Up With Him, so the crowd was well and truly warmed up for things to come.

We then turned our attention to the smaller Spotlight Stage towards the back of the venue, where smaller ‘up and coming’ artists were given the chance to show off in the arena. First to take to this stage was Morgan Evans, an Australian artist who introduced us to his ‘American Band’ in the form of his loop pedal where he replicated guitar and drum sounds to make up for lack of backing band. A highlight was his hit Kiss Somebody which I’m sure got him a few new fans. I found his voice reasonably similar to Keith Urban’s (and not just because of the Aussie accent) – if Keith’s fame is anything to go by, we have a lot to look forward to from Morgan.

Morgan was followed on the Main Stage by his new wife, Kelsea Ballerini. I had a blast at her concert last May and she has no problem commanding a stage of this size. Her set began with a video montage of her stratospheric rise to fame, including photos with American talk show hosts, Nick Jonas and Shania Twain to name a few. Like OD, she played songs from both of her albums which I think highlight her transition from looking for love in The First Time album with catchy songs like Dibs and Love Me Like You Mean It to having found it in Unapologetically with songs like the title track, Music, and a personal favourite of mine, I Hate Love Songs.

Following Kelsea on the Spotlight Stage was Brett Young whose songs are what I would term earworms. One listen to songs like Sleep Without You and In Case You Didn’t Know and you’ll be struggling to get them out of your head for weeks. No doubt he’ll be back for a full UK tour soon judging from the reaction of the crowd. 

Friday night ended with artists I’m sure many members of the crowd would have come to see had it just been them playing – married megastars Tim McGraw and Faith Hill finally bringing their Soul 2 Soul tour to the UK. The duo began with duets including a cover of I Knew You Were Waiting For Me before splitting the set almost in two, first beginning with Faith who sang numerous hits like Breathe, The Way You Love Me and This Kiss.

Tim followed this up with his own anthems such as Live Like You Were Dying, Humble and Kind and One of Those Nights. The two came back for more duets like Speak to a Girl, before a quick costume change for the encore of I Need You with the two sitting opposite each other and gazing in each others eyes. Perhaps it was due to the rehearsed nature of the gig, but I felt like the whole thing was missing chemistry – I’d be interested to know what other attendees thought. Nevertheless, those of us who came to see two country superstars went home happy!

Stay tuned for reviews of C2C Days 2 and 3, as well as artist interviews (including one of the headliners!) coming to this blog very soon. If you'd like to see more photos and videos from the festival, make sure to follow me on Twitter @CiarasCountry. Were you at the festival this year? Let me know what parts you liked and what you didn't by dropping a comment below!