As part of his eagerly awaited return to the U.K., Morgan Evans played shows across the country ahead of his performance at Long Road Festival on Saturday 7th September. These dates come as part of his recent World Tour for his incredible debut album ‘Things That We Drink To’, released last year through Warner Music/Warner Music Nashville. The 6th of September saw Morgan Evans play a sold out show in London’s O2 Academy Islington to an adoring crowd. The support act for the night was the wonderful Laura Oakes who thoroughly warmed up the audience for Morgan as he stepped on stage to a welcoming cheer.
Having just released the bluegrass infused version of his track ‘Young Again’, Evans kicked off his performance with the original version to a wave of cheers from the London crowd. His catching positive attitude and happy nature instantly spread around the room and made everyone feel a part of the experience. Following on from the opening track, Morgan sang the beautifully written ‘I Do’ and a brilliant medley of his ‘Everything Changes’ and the Tom Petty classic ‘Free Fallin’’.
With the O2 Islington crowd hanging onto his every word, Morgan filled the venue with various tracks from the ‘Things That We Drink To’ album. After performing ‘Dance With Me’, the album’s title track and ‘American’, Morgan gave the audience an insight into some of his favourite country songs by playing Keith Urban’s ‘Somebody Like You’ and Dylan Scott’s ‘Hooked’. After hopping onto the barrier to greet his adoring fans, phones were lifted up high to record Evans as he played the first few chords of the gold-certified US number 1 hit ‘Kiss Somebody’ followed by one of his fans’ favourite tracks ‘Day Drunk’.
Morgan closed the set with a medley of various crowd pleasers including ‘We Will Rock You’ and ‘Young, Wild and Free’. After only a few seconds of Morgan being off stage, the audience started cheering and clapping, begging for more. Within no time at all Morgan came back on stage, visibly overwhelmed with the love that everyone showed him throughout the night. He filled his encore with his song ‘We Dream’ and ended the night on a high with a feel good performance of the bluegrass version of ‘Young Again’. The crowd’s enthusiastic reaction proved the country singer’s raw talent, needing only his voice and small amount of equipment to get people tapping their feet and raising their drinks to him and his music.
Armed only with a guitar and loop pedals, Morgan’s one-man band performance blew everyone away. His effortless charisma and stage presence gave him a natural ability to hold everyone’s attention, making them dance and sing along to every song. Morgan’s use of loop pedals gave his show an effective and unique twist and could lead to London seeing a string of rising country stars performing in the same way. Evans lit up the O2 Islington as if it were the O2 arena, leaving everyone hoping that he will be back in London with more shows very soon.