It felt like only a few hours prior that I’d left The O2 (and indeed it was - check out Day 1 here first!) before I returned for Day 2 of C2C Country 2 Country. First up for our Saturday lineup were the Queens of UK country music, Ward Thomas (interview coming soon!) With a new album freshly released, they were on top form as they launched into their harmonious songs. We heard new tracks including Music In The Madness, the dark and spooky Justice and Mercy and the sweet Loved By You; as well as old favourites such as Guilty Flowers and Cartwheels. Whether it was the years of practice or their sibling harmonies, Catherine and Lizzie seemed particularly fine-tuned as they brought the BBC Radio 2 stage to life. We ended with the fun and upbeat Next To You and clap-alongable Carry You Home – probably the best Ward Thomas set I’ve seen to date.
Not long after, Corey Kent made a reappearance. In contract to Ward Thomas’s full band, this was just Corey and his guitar, and quite frankly that was all we needed. His silky smooth voice flowed over songs like Tumbleweed, Highways and Gold, leaving everyone truly hanging onto his every word – you could really have heard a pin drop. He gave us the choice of a Beatles or Travis Tritt cover (country, always), highlighting his efforts never to put on the same show twice.
Something I really liked about Corey was his genuine nature – he shared his story of starting out by writing songs for other people before deciding that he wanted to write songs for himself. The results? A beautiful song called How You Know You Made It, where he sings ‘I got a house that’s home, a can that’s cold, a hand to hold, that’s how you know you made it’. As he ended his set, he seemed genuinely grateful for the song that changed his life – Wild As Her. Corey, we were grateful to have you play it for us!
I dipped out of the venue to head off for interviews with SmithField and Amanda Shires (coming soon!) before returning for Madeline Edwards, who had been hotly tipped as one of the ones to watch at C2C 2023. As she went through her set, it became clear that Madeline’s voice would suit any genre – her smoky vocals worked just as well on the powerful Crash Landed as they did on the sassy Spurs. We also got an insight into her musical influences too, ranging from Childish Gambino’s Redbone to Amy Winehouse’s Valerie.
This is a woman who has honed her craft and found what fits for her. She showed her authentic self, from a song about ‘being completely and utterly unhinged’: Hold My Horses to not caring about the opinions of anyone except these three: Mama, Dolly, Jesus. Whether Madeline’s next album takes her more into blues, rock, gospel, or even further into country, I’ll be listening.
If you read my review of Day 1 of C2C, you’ll know I wasn’t all that impressed about this year’s lineup (repeats, repeats, repeats), but one artist who I didn’t mind returning at all was Jillian Jacqueline. She came on stage in a stunning outfit (yes, country music festivals really are all about gorgeous sparkly outfits) and began by telling us her origin story of touring with Kenny Rogers as a child which led her to pursuing a career in country music. She finished the story by referencing the phrase ‘they always tell you not to meet your heroes’, but as luck would have it, I would be meeting one of my own later that afternoon (stay tuned for my interview with Jillian!)
After her previous trip to the UK in 2018, Jillian had plenty of new music to share for us, including the ‘very apt for London’ track When It Rains, about that one person you think of every time in rains (it’s raining as I write this – who are you thinking of?) She continued with ‘the only bitchy song’ in her repertoire, the fun Bandwagon which she wrote with Old Dominion’s Trevor Rosen, and then a beautiful song about being grateful for all her past relationships because they led her to the one she was meant to be in – The Ocean: ‘Some loves are rivers, some are the ocean’. I’m a big fan of songs like that – check out Rascal Flatts’ Bless The Broken Road too!
I loved hearing both Jillian’s new and old stuff, and she also played Hate Me and God Bless This Mess, which she told us had taken on a totally different meaning after she got married and had a child. Her set filled me with questions I looked forward to asking her in our interview later that day and made me appreciate that a truly good country music set gives us the best of both sides – life is beautiful, but sometimes it’s also Better With A Broken Heart.
If sad songs were the theme of the morning, then Sam Williams was the perfect next addition to the lineup. Dressed in a fabulous outfit, I’m sure many members of the audience were not expecting the voice that came out of Sam as he began with Glasshouse Children. A higher tone than many male vocalists, Sam has a unique voice that somehow suits the obvious pain you hear in his songs. Indeed, most were sad, from Can’t Fool Your Own Blood about lying to the ones you love, and one he wrote in honour of his sister who passed away - The World: Alone. He told us he writes these songs because that’s what country music is to him – a way to highlight the darker sides of life. More on that in the interview I had with Sam later that day!
And that was it for my Saturday small stage acts – plenty more to come on the Main Stage later that evening, stay tuned to @CiarasCountry to know when it's posted!
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