Concerts are one major thing I know many of us have missed this past
year – I mean, look at me – half of my blog is based around attending,
reviewing, and interviewing at concerts! Aside from that, there’s nothing quite
like the buzz you get being around thousands of people who share the same
passion as you, in the same room as your favourite artists, singing the words
to the songs you’ve heard on repeat over and over again. I’d say it’ll still be
a while until I get back to any gigs or festivals, but thanks to technology,
that doesn’t mean I can’t enjoy them from home.
C2C Country 2 Country 2020 was the first of its kind that I had missed
since its inauguration in 2013 (and you can find countless blog posts about
C2C’s over the years right here – just search C2C in the search bar on your
right), because I was in Australia checking out its counterpart (read about that here). However, lucky for me, the folks at Country 2 Country were kind
enough to record some of the highlights from Berlin 2020 and share them with us
over Facebook live, so I thought I’d share my thoughts with you now, just like
we were at C2C 2020 together! I've included some photos from the last times I saw these artists too.
The first thing that I’ll say is that I was impressed with the length of the event – about two and a half hours of non-stop music, and super helpfully for me as a reviewer, with the artist and song title labelled in the corner of the screen.
The first artist we had was red-headed country singer Caylee Hammack, who started by saying ‘Do I have any redheads in the house?’ (I cheered from home) before launching into her fun song Redhead, full of lyrics I’m sure my parents would agree with – ‘they got their hands full tryna tame a pistol’, and ‘raised a little hell when they raised a little redhead’.
Just like that song, it was obvious that Caylee herself was full of fun, as the next song we saw started with her strapping a tiny children’s xylophone under her arm. ‘This is for any boy who your Momma warned you about and you still dated,’ she started off by saying, and I’ll admit that I was expecting another foot-stomper so was pretty surprised when it started off as a stripped back ballad. However, before too long, Just Friends kicked up a notch into the powerful song I recognised from some of my Spotify recommended playlists with some of the best advice I’ve heard: ‘I shoulda listened to my momma and we shoulda stayed just friends’.
https://ciarascountry.blogspot.com/2019/03/concert-review-cmc-rocks-festival-day-2.html
The next artist was no stranger to me - Noah Schnacky, who I’d had the pleasure of interviewing at CMC Rocks (check that interview out here). Immediately, Noah’s charisma was clear to see, from the way he dressed, in a laid-back outfit of jeans, backwards baseball cap, and a sweatshirt with his surname on the back; to the confidence in his voice as he kicked off with Hello Beautiful, a song I could practically feel the girls in the audience falling in love with.
I particularly enjoyed his cover of Thomas Rhett’s Make Me Wanna, where he added a little country twang into his vocals. His band had done a great job of adapting the song to make it different enough to be Noah’s own, and yet familiar enough so that it was recognisable to country songs. A great choice for a show like C2C, as not only did it show off his voice and guitar skills, but also pulled in anyone who maybe didn’t know Noah before, but certainly would know Thomas. The last song of his we heard on the livestream was Noah’s first radio single, I’ll Be The One, with cutesy lyrics like ‘I’ll be the one that got the one that got away’. Noah really looked like he was having fun at this point, pulling off his sweater and giving it to a lucky girl in the front row. Overall, if you’re looking for something halfway between country and a boy band, Noah’s certainly the one for you.
I will rave about Aussie duo Seaforth until the day I die, so I was really pleased to see they were included in the C2C highlights, if only for one song. They introduced their song Talk To Me by saying it was one they wrote about girls with Southern accents ‘but since we’re here, it’s about girls with German accents’. These kings of harmony blessed us with three minutes of enjoyment, and I think a line in their song encapsulates well how I feel about Seaforth - ‘it don’t matter what you’re saying, you know it all sounds good’.
https://ciarascountry.blogspot.com/2018/04/concert-review-nashville-in-concert.html
You might be forgiven for thinking Hugh Jackman was the next artist on stage as Charles Esten began with his easy listening Sweet Summer Saturday Night. With his deep voice and sultry talk singing, I thought this was exactly the kind of song you listen to at a beach festival – aka exactly where I’d rather be right now. As he moved on to She Don’t Love Me with an intense guitar solo from Charles at the beginning, it was astonishing how much he seemed to me to epitomise his character Deacon from the show where he got his country start – ABC’s Nashville – and I found myself wondering whether the character of Deacon was based on Charles, or whether Charles had based his country persona that we were now seeing on the stage on Deacon.
Charles’s section of the show finished with the fun and playful He Ain’t Me - ‘he might be all that, but honey, he ain’t me’ – culminating with Charles doing a proper rockstar jump off the higher section of the stage at the end. He’s likeable and fun, and made an enjoyable addition to the show.
Next up was Kassi Ashton, who started off by introducing the song that got her her publishing deal, Pretty Shiny Things. The song itself was pleasant – a powerful ballad about being valued for your looks over anything else, but personally, Kassi’s voice wasn’t for me. Having heard her speak just moments before, I was a tad disappointed by the, in my opinion, overly ‘indie’ tone that she sang with that I find a great deal of artists nowadays tend to add to their vocals. Perhaps that is Kassi’s natural singing voice, who knows, and if indie’s your thing, she might be for you.
https://ciarascountry.blogspot.com/2018/03/concert-review-c2c-country-2-country.html
It was the first ‘big name act’ that we had next, Brett Young, looking like bro-country personified in his camo tee and jeans. The first song we saw was 1,2,3 Mississippi, in which Brett paced across the stage to make sure he gives attention to everyone. This continued in Here Tonight, where he did his best to get the audience to engage with him – pointing and asking them to sing with him, a move I’m always impressed that artists do at festivals where a fair few people might not know their songs.
I like Brett's voice with its raspy undertone, and enjoyed many of the lyrics in Here Tonight, including the adorable ‘if ever I get lost in your eyes tonight, please just let me stay a little bit longer’. Nowhere were the lyrics more enjoyable than in made-for-the-radio track Catch, where Brett sang of all the things he thought he’d be catching – a buzz, up with the boys, a cab; and now he’s trying to catch her eye, her name and catch his breath. Clever.
If Brett looked like what you think when you think ‘country’, Filmore certainly didn’t. Complete with manbun and hipster clothing, Filmore is a far cry from the cowboy hats and flannel we’re used to, but I think does a good job at highlighting how country is always changing, and there isn’t really ‘one style’ of country after all – I find this all the time, hosting a country-pop radio station (Friday’s GMT 5-8pm on www.ukcountryradio.com, if you’re interested), and people expecting me to either be playing just Dolly Parton and Johnny Cash on repeat, or songs about trucks and girls in cut-off jeans…
Long story short, it’s this embrace of country not being what it used to be that I think Filmore does well. We heard three song from him - Love That About You; a song ‘about being in love, I guess’ called Other Girl, and finally Slower. Of the three, my favourite was Other Girl, a cute track that you can just imagine him serenading to someone special with its lyrics like ‘I don’t need no other girl, cause when it’s right, it’s right’, but perhaps what impressed me most about Filmore was his ability to hold the audience with just his voice and a guitar – no backing musicians, no visuals – not an easy feat, but just goes to show that a good voice, good lyrics, and good personality go a long way.
https://ciarascountry.blogspot.com/2018/03/concert-review-c2c-country-2-country_14.html
Another artist who blurs the boundary as to ‘what is country’ is Lindsay Ell, the bluesy-rock-country-chick that I really don’t think has any competition for her niche in the genre at the moment – there really is no one else in country who does that style as well as Lindsay. I remember being enthralled one of the last times I saw her by her beautiful guitar (check that review out here), and she certainly didn’t disappoint in Berlin, with a gorgeous guitar with painted flowers and gold glitter – I’ll take one, please. It certainly wasn’t just for show too, as she punctuated all of the songs we heard with awesome guitar, highlighting the major benefit of attending concerts rather than just listening to the record – artists can really go to town on their instrumentals in a way that a three-minute track just wouldn’t allow you to.
The first song we heard was I Don’t Love You, full of power as it hit the chorus, with Lindsay pouring her heart and soul into those notes. What was amazing was that I could tell that she wasn’t even giving it her all, and you could hear the power in her voice that she was holding back, eventually letting loose at the bridge as the band pulled back to let her show off those amazing vocals. She continued with a cover of Stevie Wonder’s Signed Sealed Delivered. Like Noah’s cover of Make Me Wanna, Lindsay had completely changed this song to make it hers, in a way that allowed her to make the most of her insane guitar skills as we saw her battle with her keyboard player, before making her way to the front of the stage to play the guitar lying flat on her back.
You could tell what her final song was going to be from the sirens playing over the speakers at the beginning. Criminal is definitely from the rockier side of her catalogue, but honestly I think Lindsay could basically choose whatever genre she wants to be in. Certainly if you’re a fan of country-rock, I can’t think of a better artist.
And that's just half of it! There was simply so much to cover, so I'll be posting Part 2 very shortly. Stay tuned, and let me know what artists you loved from today's review by contacting me on Twitter @CiarasCountry - thanks so much for reading!
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