If I can make C2C Country 2 Country last even longer than it
normally would, you better believe I’m going to do just that. This year, my
plan involved heading to the O2 a day early for the CMA Songwriters Series. I’d
forgone this experience in previous years (a weekend at C2C is expensive, even
without all the added extras!) but decided to take the plunge this year to find
out what all the fuss was about.
I arrived at Indigo at the O2 slightly before doors were due
to open. Having come straight from ‘real work’ (blogging is real work, just
sadly not full time for me yet!) I was glad that this was a seated performance
as no doubt General Admission would have meant attendees would have been
queuing for hours and I’d have no chance of a good view.
Whilst I’d had a hiccup when ordering tickets and ended up
slightly further back than planned, my seats were actually fantastic – first
row of the second section with a great view of the stage. I settled into my
seat and watched as the country fans began making their way in, intrigued by
the song choices the venue had chosen, with almost all tracks either drinking
or truck related, which if you’ve read my blog before you’ll know I don’t think
are representative of the genre.
At around 8pm, the songwriters took to the stage to
absolutely no fanfare at all, with the exception of Kip Moore who got a big
cheer as he walked onstage. Brett James, the host for the evening, began with
quick introductions of everyone, with the lineup consisting of Luke Combs,
Natalie Hemby, Kip Moore, Nicolle Galyon and himself; only two of whom I was
familiar with before attending. Such is the case with songwriters – we don’t
know their names but we certainly know their songs!
The format of the evening was ‘in the round’ style as you
might find at the Bluebird Café, and so Luke kicked us off with the title track
of his album This One’s For You which
I’d say a fair few members of the audience were familiar with, particularly as
he would be playing the Main Stage arena over the weekend.
This was followed by 6 #1 singles songwriter Natalie Hemby,
who began by explaining that if you want to be a songwriter in Nashville, you
have to write a drinking song (and judging by the tracks played as we came into
the venue, she’s not wrong). Her input into this was a track recorded by Justin
Moore called You Look Like I Need A Drink,
which I loved hearing her sing acoustically as it had a completely different
feel to Moore’s interpretation.
Kip was next, and allowed the audience to help him decide
which song to play, eventually settling on Last
Shot, with his singing voice interestingly quite different to his speaking
voice.
He was followed by Nicolle Galyon, another of the artists
I’d not heard of but had huge admiration for by the end of the night. For her
first time in London, she decided to play for us her first song that had made
it to radio, Keith Urban and Miranda Lambert’s We Were Us.
On Brett’s turn, he asks the audience how many of us had
been to Nashville and I was pleased to see the vast majority raise their hands.
We country fans will absolutely make the pilgrimage to Music City if we can! He
then told us the story of a crazy night with Kenny Chesney (wouldn’t we all
like to have one of those?) which inspired the song We Went Out Last Night, and another #1 song written on the same
weekend.
The Songwriters Series was not only an opportunity to play
songs we’d heard of, but also test out new tracks which is what Luke Combs
chose to do on his second term with an unreleased song Musta Never Met You, a track which unsurprisingly worked very well
with his gravelly voice and no doubt will be on his next album.
I found Natalie Hemby quite amusing, and she told us of how
a friend of her had misheard the title of Fine
Tune as Pontoon. From this, she
decided she should write a really obnoxious tune called just that. As she sang,
she joked about its Grammy worthy lyrics like ‘Who said anything about skiing?
Floating is all I wanna do / You can climb the ladder / Just don’t rock the
boat while I barbeque’ (Yes, that really did get nominated for a Grammy!)
Kip then sang one of his songs from his third album Slowheart called More Girls Like You which if you know Kip, you’ll probably be
familiar with and as a result there was plenty of singing along to this.
Nicolle took a few minutes to tell us another story, this
time about what it’s like to be married to another songwriter and the
competition that comes from this, with her husband writing Kenny Chesney’s American Kids which got selected for his
album whilst tracks she had written didn’t make it. The moral of the story, she
said, was that in the end it didn’t matter because it all goes to the same bank
account. And yes, she did get Kenny to cut one of her tracks which she played
for us on the piano – All The Pretty
Girls.
To end off the round, Brett played Jason Aldean’s The Truth before we began Round 3 with
Luke Combs and a track he wrote whilst missing his girlfriend in Texas, aptly
named Houston We Got A Problem.
Whilst I’d class two of the artists of the evening as
songwriters who are most known for their commercial success and the other three
as songwriters known for others success, Natalie Hemby bridged the gap by
releasing her own album at age 40 called Puxico,
a track from which we got to hear called Return to Me. She has a stunning voice so I’d definitely recommend
you check out the album!
We had another smoking / drinking song up next from Kip with
That Was Us which I’m sure had some
great stories behind it, although he didn’t share them. However, he did tell us
a story about a married couple inviting him back to their hotel room one night
on tour which I’m sure could definitely inspire a song or two!
Nicolle began her next track by introducing it as a song
that she didn’t see coming and one that I absolutely would not have anticipated
having walked into the Songwriters Series that evening. Turns out, Nicolle had
written a song called Consequences
which was played to Ed Sheeran who said it was a song a soon to be solo artist,
Fifth Harmony’s Camila Cabello, should record, which then ended up on her
hugely successful debut album. I sure wasn’t expecting a song like that to show
up at a country songwriters session but I think it just goes to show how
versatile these songwriters are and how closely linked country and pop now are.
Not to be outdone, Brett James followed this up with a track
he had written for Kelly Clarkson called Mr
Know It All which we all very much enjoyed as it is certainly not a song
you’d expect him to sing.
We got another new song from Luke called Beautiful Crazy which he had written
about a girl he liked, telling her ‘You know who this is about, don’t you?’ She
replied with ‘No,’ he replied with ‘Not you,’ and the two soon started dating.
A love story if ever I’ve heard one!
Natalie followed with one of the many songs she’s written
with Miranda Lambert (or Melinda as her strange neighbour used to refer to
her), this one being White Liar which
she told us changed course quite significantly from its inception to recording.
Kip went on to sing Crazy
One More Time which was followed by Nicolle singing a song which couldn’t
have been more apt for International Women’s Day – Keith Urban’s Female. Having checked out Twitter after
this performance, I saw plenty of comments about how great it sounded sung by
her, and I couldn’t agree more.
Brett finished the penultimate round with a song he wrote
just last week called Reason or Rhyme. Given
the status of the evening, I wouldn’t be surprised if that could end up the
next hit by Luke Bryan or someone of that ilk – keep your eyes peeled!
Luke started off the final round with an absolute
crowdpleaser in the form of his hit When
It Rains It Pours with super fun lyrics. I can’t wait to see how different
it will sound when he performs it on the Main Stage over the weekend (stay
tuned for our roundup of the weekend soon!)
Perhaps my favourite performance of the night came next (and
it was hard to choose) with another unexpected recording. Natalie Hemby told us
of a song she had written called Jealous which
was recorded by none other than UK rapper Labrinth – you might remember him
from tracks like Pass Out and Earthquake and never in a million years
would I have expected to hear one of his songs had been written by a country
songwriter. I wish I could hear her sing it again and again.
Kip’s final performance was Guitar Man which he interjected with a lengthy but interesting
story of heartbreak age 21 and the girl who had influenced the song and I’m
sure regrets breaking up with him now!
We ended the show with what Nicolle termed her most personal
song which she’d written ahead of the birth of her son and turned into Lee
Brice’s hit song Boy, again which
takes on a different meaning when performed by a woman. Brett then closed off
the evening with a song written for country superstar Carrie Underwood, Jesus Take The Wheel, which shot her to
fame and highlighted just the calibre of the songwriters we had the opportunity
to see at the showcase.
What a great kick-off to the C2C weekend. If you have the
opportunity to see songwriters perform, whether that be at Songwriters Series,
The Bluebird Café or elsewhere, I can’t recommend it strongly enough!
I hope you enjoyed my
coverage of the CMA Songwriters Series ahead of C2C Country 2 Country! There
will be plenty more interviews and reviews from the weekend coming your way
shortly so make sure to stay tuned on the blog and my Twitter @CiarasCountry,
and let me know if you’ll be at the festival or wish you were!
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