C2C Berlin 2026 In Review
I regularly paraphrase Taylor Swift and her opening monologue to the Speak Now tour is one of my go to’s, but it is true how real life is a funny thing. In June 2018 I had a really wild time last in Nashville where we ended up in Honky Tonk Central on Broadway and I was texting a friend who ran another website about how good a time I was having where I drunkenly agreed to write something about my first trip over there. Less than a month later I was sat down in a dressing room at Shepherd’s Bush Empire with a man in board shorts and a Carolina Panthers hoodie who has been doing pretty well for himself since and is headlining multiple nights at Wembley stadium later this year. It is a really funny thing when I reflect back on over four hundred interviews since my first with Mr Combs and how country music has taken me back to places like Nashville, Amsterdam, Lisbon, Cologne and multiple trips to Berlin in Germany for something that I pretend to call work where I have spoken to people from right across the globe who all share the same love for country music.
London is my home, I still believe I live in the greatest city on earth and to have it be the destination for Europe’s largest country music festival for over a decade makes me so proud to see the growth of the genre but to be able to get on a plane for a third time to attend the sister festival in a country that don’t even speak our language and have an influx of North American and Antipodean cousins making that same journey to Berlin still blows my mind.
One of the reasons we love the festival in Berlin and one of the things that most of the artists we spoke to in advance were excited about was just having a couple of days in a really relaxed environment with all of your buddies in one place. It’s been great to catch up with a lot of old friends who were playing the festival but where nobody is in a rush, plus the opportunity to meet Zoom pals like Benny G and Ashland Craft (who I’m convinced I am now best friends forever with after a really fun interview at her hotel on Friday morning) in real life along with regular late night drinks over the weekend with our new buddies Matt Lang and Dawson Anderson.
Dawson joined Ian on the boat where we were staying on Saturday after this year’s Queen of C2C: Tyla Rodrigues learnt all about Greggs ahead of her trip to London next week, when she came to hang out with me on Friday morning where it was clear that Brits and Australians have contrasting views on whether it is warm or not.
London is my home, I still believe I live in the greatest city on earth and to have it be the destination for Europe’s largest country music festival for over a decade makes me so proud to see the growth of the genre but to be able to get on a plane for a third time to attend the sister festival in a country that don’t even speak our language and have an influx of North American and Antipodean cousins making that same journey to Berlin still blows my mind.
One of the reasons we love the festival in Berlin and one of the things that most of the artists we spoke to in advance were excited about was just having a couple of days in a really relaxed environment with all of your buddies in one place. It’s been great to catch up with a lot of old friends who were playing the festival but where nobody is in a rush, plus the opportunity to meet Zoom pals like Benny G and Ashland Craft (who I’m convinced I am now best friends forever with after a really fun interview at her hotel on Friday morning) in real life along with regular late night drinks over the weekend with our new buddies Matt Lang and Dawson Anderson.
Dawson joined Ian on the boat where we were staying on Saturday after this year’s Queen of C2C: Tyla Rodrigues learnt all about Greggs ahead of her trip to London next week, when she came to hang out with me on Friday morning where it was clear that Brits and Australians have contrasting views on whether it is warm or not.
Credit: Jens Fricke
As always, our weekend began at a beautiful church on Thursday night where Liam St. John, Tyler Braden, Jackson Dean and the ultimate last minute super sub: Emily Ann Roberts delivered a stunning night in the perfect setting, where even the Spurs performance in a bar after did not dampen the spirits. The festival in Berlin brings a sense on Zen where shit just works without chaos and also involves a quarter of the steps that we will do next week in London but more importantly seems to deliver perfect weather. The event in Berlin is compact, and this adds to the appeal where all of the stages are contained and less than a minute apart but also because all of the stages feel so different, which is part of the reason why we keep going back.
To quote a certain label head, the weekend was fueled by Kinder Bueno and vibes, then I personally would add McDonalds chicken wings and a lot of beers to this cocktail which led to some very late nights. The addition of two new stages was much welcomed, where the Whiskey Barrel Stage in The Irish Pub, Berlin particularly was somewhere that we spent a lot of time. To give musical highlights is actually really difficult as there were no low points on stage from the weekend and we cannot wait to be back again in 2027 but to give an observational style notebook, I present as follows:
To quote a certain label head, the weekend was fueled by Kinder Bueno and vibes, then I personally would add McDonalds chicken wings and a lot of beers to this cocktail which led to some very late nights. The addition of two new stages was much welcomed, where the Whiskey Barrel Stage in The Irish Pub, Berlin particularly was somewhere that we spent a lot of time. To give musical highlights is actually really difficult as there were no low points on stage from the weekend and we cannot wait to be back again in 2027 but to give an observational style notebook, I present as follows:
- Jack Wharff Band - These guys are the REAL DEAL who will be playing stadiums before you can blink.
- Benny G - I think this guy has the most magical and mesmerizing voice that you will ever hear which justifies why he was the name on everyone’s lips all weekend. – THIS MAN SHOULD BE AT THE VERY TOP OF YOUR MUSIC SEE LIST THIS WEEKEND IN LONDON!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
- Jordan Davis - The most perfect headliner for this festival, it was a rowdy set filled with wall-to-wall bangers, and it was a lot of fun where it felt like there was even more intensity than his sold-out show to TWELVE THOUSAND PEOPLE at Wembley Arena in London last weekend.
- Tyla Rodrigues - This girl is a very, very, very special talent with such a beautiful voice delivering serious depth and relatability in her lyrics who will be clocking up a lot of air miles from Queensland in Australia over the next few years to wow crowds across the planet as she is going to be a global megastar!
- Noeline Hofmann - Canada’s magical lyricist who single handedly represented the girls on the main stage during International Women’s Day and we continue to be captivated by everything about her.
- James Barker Band – The other Canadian sensations who gave it everything throughout their high energy set. These guys are fabulous to watch live and it’s a real shame they aren’t coming to rock the main stage in London as well, but fingers crossed that a UK return happens again very soon!
- Tyler Rich - The nicest and most genuine person in music who played anywhere that they told him to during the festival (hopefully the main stage next time) and always delivered the perfect feel-good atmosphere.
- Kylie Morgan - Just an absolute Queen who has been the best dressed all weekend and possesses one of my favorite voices in country music. She always has a smile on her face and that always puts a smile on mine, especially when she teases super, super sassy new songs.
- Jackson Dean - Berlin and Rotterdam’s crown jewel as there is no major UK tour or C2C main stage appearance back at home. Him and his band are so tight, meaning the show always hits hard to highlight his stunning voice especially when there is a new project on the horizon to drop hints towards.
- Liam St. John - Blues rock at its very best, where the trio arrangement worked perfectly and the Man Of The North became the King Of East Berlin.
Credit: Jens Fricke
Whilst a lot of the daily content we have been putting out in Berlin has been very light hearted (such as where we talked heavily about a British bakery chain during an interview or how we made daily gossip magazine covers with as much emphasis on me buying our friends at Holler a pretzel and late night trips to McDonalds as to the performances themselves) I do need to put on my serious face for a minute. Living in London, when you go to pubs, restaurants and venues, you will virtually always see two types of posters in every bar, pub or venue, where the promotion of “Ask for Angela” and noticing the signs of spiking are rightfully really big things. This may be feedback for the venues or that Germany doesn’t talk about things as openly and frequently as we do but whilst there were posters promoting inclusivity and acceptable behaviour, they didn’t really give any direct things to look out for, how to get hep or have safety as the focus if you did see or experience unacceptable treatment. Talking about spiking specifically, it is obviously quite a sinister topic and I don’t want to talk about the details of why this is relevant to our trip this year but I feel that as an event which we have always pushed out to everyone about how safe and welcoming it is, it unfortunately is something that could really spoil things. I know it’s not a fun thing to put on posters but whilst it’s lovely to imagine a harmonious environment where nobody is racist, sexist, homophobic or whatever, it’s equally as important to promote safety and wellbeing.
I hate throwing out negativity, especially when talking about one of our favourite weekends of the year and the only other constructive criticism I can share is how it would have been nice to have more of a female presence during the evening on International Women’s Day as Noeline and Elizabeth Nichols were the only two ladies amongst the nine performers so hopefully that can be looked at when it next coincides with the festival.
We love the layout, we love the vibe, we love how more and more Brits are making the trip over to do two weekends back-to-back, we love how stress free things are and we love everything else about the German festival so we cannot wait to return once again next year, the boat has already been pre-booked so we hope to find more new friends willing to do interviews on the water but until then Dankeschön Berlin and Prost!!!!!
C2C: Country to Country will return to Berlin in 2027 across the weekend of March 5th to 7th where you will be able to find more details on their WEBSITE and keep in the loop regarding lineups and ticket information on INSTAGRAM & FACEBOOK.
Meanwhile, our own 2026 festival is only at the halfway point as the O2 in Greenwich will be our home this coming weekend where Brooks & Dunn are the star attraction along with Keith Urban, Ashley Cooke and Mackenzie Carpenter joining the party too. Full festival details and last minute ticket information are available on the London WEBSITE and socials (FACEBOOK INSTAGRAM X)
I hate throwing out negativity, especially when talking about one of our favourite weekends of the year and the only other constructive criticism I can share is how it would have been nice to have more of a female presence during the evening on International Women’s Day as Noeline and Elizabeth Nichols were the only two ladies amongst the nine performers so hopefully that can be looked at when it next coincides with the festival.
We love the layout, we love the vibe, we love how more and more Brits are making the trip over to do two weekends back-to-back, we love how stress free things are and we love everything else about the German festival so we cannot wait to return once again next year, the boat has already been pre-booked so we hope to find more new friends willing to do interviews on the water but until then Dankeschön Berlin and Prost!!!!!
C2C: Country to Country will return to Berlin in 2027 across the weekend of March 5th to 7th where you will be able to find more details on their WEBSITE and keep in the loop regarding lineups and ticket information on INSTAGRAM & FACEBOOK.
Meanwhile, our own 2026 festival is only at the halfway point as the O2 in Greenwich will be our home this coming weekend where Brooks & Dunn are the star attraction along with Keith Urban, Ashley Cooke and Mackenzie Carpenter joining the party too. Full festival details and last minute ticket information are available on the London WEBSITE and socials (FACEBOOK INSTAGRAM X)
