C2C 2025 Friday
"I dunno, I'm not sure if it's big enough LOL" was my response when my friend who is also the venue manager at The O2 asked if I liked the excessively large inflatable cowboy hat hanging from the ceiling as you enter the complex to great you for this year's C2C: Country to Country in London. We were back for year eleven at Europe's largest country music festival which has taken place annually in Greenwich since 2013 (ignoring a two-year hiatus brought on by the pandemic) and would mark the return of Mr Dierks Bentley to our wonderful city for the first time in nine years.
By the time that Mackenzie Carpenter and Alyssa Bonagura (much more about these two Country Queen's to come) played their first notes to start their 1pm sets on Friday afternoon to officially kick off the festival, I already had no concept of what day it was or how many days I had already been in the C2C bubble this year. The sister festival in Berlin was a joy over the previous weekend and I also got to see six-month-old twin panda cubs (and yea they are even cuter than you can imagine as you read this) in the German sunshine as the weather was a real treat and hit 19 degrees pretty steadily during our five night (should have been four but industrial action at all of German airports on Monday meant we had to stay longer) stay in the River Spree. Yes, we did actually stay in the river and you can read more about the #boatel and catching some rays in my review of the German event HERE but whilst the weather Gods were not overly cruel to us in London, they weren't quite as generous as they were in Berlin.
Back home I spent some time with Chanel Yates and Kassi Ashton along with events wonderfully put on by Snakefarm and Apple in the run up to the main event in Greenwich. In a similar way to how my time at the festival in Berlin began with a fun interview, London started with the feral adventure I wanted it to be and I got to go on a really wild one with Maggie Antone. I would later get to catch two sets from this wonderful woman on Friday and she is badass. One of my best friends is part of her label team at Thirty Tigers and another close friend was working with her on the photography side across the festival but that “Rhinestoned” record is so good and getting to see her live was everything that I wanted it to be.
The Virginia native would later appear on the main stage with 49 Winchester and seeing her for the first time surpassed all of my expectations but if you read the Berlin review you may notice there was a Canadian sensation that was very central to our experience in the German capital. The wonderful, the wholesome and the absolute badass that Meghan Patrick is, had been top of a lot of people’s lists of artists we were waiting for to play a show in the UK and the opportunity arose for her to add an additional set for the Friday on the BBC Radio 2 stage presented an even earlier opportunity for British fans to see her and Nick Ryan up on stage. Her team are the greatest, she’s one of the truest lyricists out there and she’s just so good! The “Golden Child” record is one of the best projects we have heard in a long time and MFP should be playing the main stage with a full band where seeing the reactions from the crowd across all of her sets, I really hope that is something which we get to see over here very soon.
I had a really cool hang talking about east end boozers and last year’s Morgan Wallen show in Hyde Park with Evan Bartels before heading outside into the cold (whilst denim shorts and DM’s complimented the look alongside my Charli XCX t-shirt so well, I didn’t really think it through properly) to see one of our closest friends as far as artists go and Miss Alyssa Bonagura did her thing to a huge crowd. AB and I became fast friends when we first met, I love her spirit and she just has the sweetest soul so I love to see her thriving over here because her talent as both a songwriter and as a performer are so underrated. We would catch up later in the weekend to talk about her recent collaboration with Charles Kelley from Lady A which was even more of a joy than usual because we hadn’t seen each other in a couple of months and the future Mrs Shirley had a pretty little engagement ring on her finger to talk all about.
My day started with a hangover which was cured by the survival kit sent to me by the lovely ladies at Big Machine UK (I hate that I will be finding pieces of black tissue paper throughout my room for the next month and as fellow fans of the cheeky little minx Sabrina Carpenter I am so jealous that they all got to see that wonderful little Goddess last weekend but BMLG are the label that we get the most direct interaction with and they are incredibly good to us both sociably and professionally) however a Thursday night in Camden was not on my C2C bingo card yet it was a fun one as we hung out with the management team of Caleb Lee Hutchinson. I really enjoyed getting to meet him in Germany and I love what he does sonically so it was really cool to get to see him play with a band on The Big Entrance stage and really nice so see such a large audience discovering and enjoying what he does.
By the time that Mackenzie Carpenter and Alyssa Bonagura (much more about these two Country Queen's to come) played their first notes to start their 1pm sets on Friday afternoon to officially kick off the festival, I already had no concept of what day it was or how many days I had already been in the C2C bubble this year. The sister festival in Berlin was a joy over the previous weekend and I also got to see six-month-old twin panda cubs (and yea they are even cuter than you can imagine as you read this) in the German sunshine as the weather was a real treat and hit 19 degrees pretty steadily during our five night (should have been four but industrial action at all of German airports on Monday meant we had to stay longer) stay in the River Spree. Yes, we did actually stay in the river and you can read more about the #boatel and catching some rays in my review of the German event HERE but whilst the weather Gods were not overly cruel to us in London, they weren't quite as generous as they were in Berlin.
Back home I spent some time with Chanel Yates and Kassi Ashton along with events wonderfully put on by Snakefarm and Apple in the run up to the main event in Greenwich. In a similar way to how my time at the festival in Berlin began with a fun interview, London started with the feral adventure I wanted it to be and I got to go on a really wild one with Maggie Antone. I would later get to catch two sets from this wonderful woman on Friday and she is badass. One of my best friends is part of her label team at Thirty Tigers and another close friend was working with her on the photography side across the festival but that “Rhinestoned” record is so good and getting to see her live was everything that I wanted it to be.
The Virginia native would later appear on the main stage with 49 Winchester and seeing her for the first time surpassed all of my expectations but if you read the Berlin review you may notice there was a Canadian sensation that was very central to our experience in the German capital. The wonderful, the wholesome and the absolute badass that Meghan Patrick is, had been top of a lot of people’s lists of artists we were waiting for to play a show in the UK and the opportunity arose for her to add an additional set for the Friday on the BBC Radio 2 stage presented an even earlier opportunity for British fans to see her and Nick Ryan up on stage. Her team are the greatest, she’s one of the truest lyricists out there and she’s just so good! The “Golden Child” record is one of the best projects we have heard in a long time and MFP should be playing the main stage with a full band where seeing the reactions from the crowd across all of her sets, I really hope that is something which we get to see over here very soon.
I had a really cool hang talking about east end boozers and last year’s Morgan Wallen show in Hyde Park with Evan Bartels before heading outside into the cold (whilst denim shorts and DM’s complimented the look alongside my Charli XCX t-shirt so well, I didn’t really think it through properly) to see one of our closest friends as far as artists go and Miss Alyssa Bonagura did her thing to a huge crowd. AB and I became fast friends when we first met, I love her spirit and she just has the sweetest soul so I love to see her thriving over here because her talent as both a songwriter and as a performer are so underrated. We would catch up later in the weekend to talk about her recent collaboration with Charles Kelley from Lady A which was even more of a joy than usual because we hadn’t seen each other in a couple of months and the future Mrs Shirley had a pretty little engagement ring on her finger to talk all about.
My day started with a hangover which was cured by the survival kit sent to me by the lovely ladies at Big Machine UK (I hate that I will be finding pieces of black tissue paper throughout my room for the next month and as fellow fans of the cheeky little minx Sabrina Carpenter I am so jealous that they all got to see that wonderful little Goddess last weekend but BMLG are the label that we get the most direct interaction with and they are incredibly good to us both sociably and professionally) however a Thursday night in Camden was not on my C2C bingo card yet it was a fun one as we hung out with the management team of Caleb Lee Hutchinson. I really enjoyed getting to meet him in Germany and I love what he does sonically so it was really cool to get to see him play with a band on The Big Entrance stage and really nice so see such a large audience discovering and enjoying what he does.
The ladies had the pleasure of bringing some elegance to our site for a change in the arena where Charlotte, Becky and Evangeline enjoyed sets from Wyatt Flores, Tucker Wetmore, Dylan Gossett, Lainey Wilson and a smasher from 49 Winchester. I went into greater detail about Isaac Gibson and those guys in my Berlin review but in a nutshell, they are one of the best live bands in music PERIOD! They are so tight, so clean, make you feel so good and they brought Maggie Antone up as a guest here in London so with their headline tour for October being announced today, I am sure that these tickets will shift fast following this rocking performance.
Aftershow party time in the Indigo and hi Kaitlin Butts! I loved getting to chat with her at The Long Road festival last summer and she was fantastic in Berlin last weekend but this was such a fun way to end night one in London. She's feisty, she is witty and her "Roadrunner!" record last year was such a cool concept project and did she bring a good time to round off Friday night.
Let's do this again on Saturday, we can "Ride It Out" with Alli Walker, maybe even have a "Good Time" with Niko Moon and get a little "Sideways" with Dierks Bentley.
Aftershow party time in the Indigo and hi Kaitlin Butts! I loved getting to chat with her at The Long Road festival last summer and she was fantastic in Berlin last weekend but this was such a fun way to end night one in London. She's feisty, she is witty and her "Roadrunner!" record last year was such a cool concept project and did she bring a good time to round off Friday night.
Let's do this again on Saturday, we can "Ride It Out" with Alli Walker, maybe even have a "Good Time" with Niko Moon and get a little "Sideways" with Dierks Bentley.
