‘It was the best of times, it was the worst of times.’ So opens Charles Dickens’ famous novel ‘A Tale of Two Cities’. The quote can be used to sum up the social media reaction to yesterday’s announcement from the Country 2 Country festival regarding its 2024 line up. Each October brings with it the excitement for the line up announcement for the following March’s show and with that announcement there is always a myriad of emotions, both positive and negative to explore, so we thought we’d jump right in and sum up what the reactions have been.
It Was the Best of Times
There is a lot of positivity around for the 2024 line up. People are excited to finally see Kane Brown do his thing at the O2 and do his thing he will. Kane will put on an energetic and lively show full of anthemic and heartfelt Country music. Sure, he’s a divisive figure in the genre, given his experimentation with styles and sounds outside the Country sphere but if you’ve ever seen him live, and we’ve had the fortune to do so three times now, you will know that he’s perfectly suited to that aircraft hangar space at the O2 as anyone.
Brad Paisley is a much loved figure in the Country world and holds a lot of respect over this side of the Atlantic for the time he’s put in touring over here. Let’s not forget that the ‘Mona Lisa Conga’ is a cherished part of C2C lore now too! Old Dominion are a tight, clever and melodic band that will close things down in London on the Sunday in some style although they’ll need to be on their toes because lots of people would have also taken Brothers Osborne as headliners and they are playing right before them!
There was a lot of positivity about Carly Pearce’s inclusion on the bill. It’s been over a year now since she last played here and her last UK tour was a sell out too. Carly is a warm and engaging performer who has that knack of making you feel like she’s performing for just you, which helps in an arena the size of the O2. Elsewhere it’s energy, energy, energy with Lauren Alaina, Priscilla Block, Elle King and Drake Milligan providing some umph. People were impressed by Brian Kelley’s appearance at the bizarre Jags Country event in London too. His set was perhaps the best thing about what turned out to be a misguided and surreal evening and his inclusion on the bill will be a solid one.
Jake Owen, baby!
Every year the three biggest ‘wishlist’ cries from many of the C2C attendees regarding artists they’d love to see at the festival have been Blake Shelton, Chris Janson and Jake Owen. C2C have only gone and done it for 2024. They’ve listened to the feedback and read the post-festival forms we all get to fill in. Jake Owen’s long overdue UK debut will be great and there’s a real chance that ‘Barefoot Blue Jean Night’ will be the anthem of the weekend.
They’re Not Headliners
Amongst the naysayers, this is a common and completely misguided opinion that gets thrown around online. How anyone can call Brad Paisley, an iconic and multi-award winning Country artist, not a headliner is beyond me. He’s headlined before too! ‘He could play in the legends slot on the Sunday’ is another opinion floating around social media. Ok, who is going to play ABOVE him if that’s the case? Kane Brown headlined Stagecoach this year in front of 75,000 people and Old Dominion have been awarded the CMA for ‘Best Group’ for about 37 years in a row now and have got numerous number ones under their belts. Some people really need a reality check.
Where’s Blake Shelton, Kenny Chesney, Luke Bryan, Jason Aldean, Alan Jackson, Toby Keith, Carrie Underwood, George Strait, Brooks and Dunn and Dolly Parton?
To play the C2C festival, there has to be a jigsaw-like series of factors that all come together smoothly. An artist has to be available and not already playing a Vegas residency like Carrie Underwood. It costs time and money for any artist or band to bring their crew and players over and some (older) artists just don’t want to do this. They also have to play three shows over three consecutive nights, which some (older) artists might not be willing or able to do.
The artist also has to fit the bill for the the brand that the festival organisers want to promote as being the international face of Country music. Some artists’ own brands don’t align with how Country music wants to be represented around the world in 2024.
Some artists have pre-existing contracts to do reality TV shows or other appearances and, quite frankly, some artists just can’t be bothered. They don’t need the exposure or hassle at whatever stage of career they are at and the expense of trying to book some of these artists would mean the rest of the festival bill would be seriously compromised by hiring a legend to swan about at the top of a bill whilst the undercard becomes a series of buskers and artists not considered big enough by many for the main stage.
Where’s Morgan Wallen, Luke Combs and Chris Stapleton?
Some artists are now just too big to play the festival in terms of being able to make lots more money playing their own shows. It’s unfortunate that Morgan Wallen had a club tour booked for the UK before the pandemic came along and it had to be cancelled. He blew up, popularity wise. and now the opportunity to see him in such intimate venues is consigned to history but it is what it is. Some artists don’t ‘need’ to play C2C anymore and can earn lots more money touring shows of their own.
There has to be some sort of exclusivity clause when signing up to play C2C which prohibits an artist from touring separately otherwise some people would choose to to go see the solo tours instead and many artists feel like they can either expand their brand or earn more money from playing their own shows in Europe.
But We’ve Seen All These Artists Before!
The ‘repeat artist’ cry is the one most commonly aired complaint about C2C and it goes right to the heart of what it is that you expect from the festival itself. Sure, the festival has changed its modus operandi over time – when it first started, in its two day guise, the bill for the Saturday and Sunday was filled with established Country artists as the festival tried to establish itself as a reputable and essential part of the Country music lexicon. When it moved to a three day festival and expanded to include all the side and pop-up stages like the Indigo, it needed to involve a lot more artists, which means it incurred a lot higher costs. Sure, ticket prices aren’t cheap but the amount of music you can see from 10am in the morning until gone midnight is phenomenal.
If your expectation is that you attend C2C every year because you want to see a different artist that you’ve never seen before then you are, unfortunately, at odds with the ethos of the festival organisers. In such a small gene pool of talent it’s not possible to put on a festival bill of 11-12 artists each year and never have any repeat performers. Some people still see the festival as being something that happens inside the O2 arena only and worry too much about the acts on the main stage in isolation. If you see the festival as a three day smorgasbord of Country music goodness where you might well see the next Carrie Underwood, Morgan Wallen or Luke Combs in a completely intimate venue that you can brag about for the rest of your life, then you are much more in line with the mission statement of what the organisers are trying to achieve with the the festival.
This year’s line up does feature a lot of artists that have played C2C before or who have toured on their own but look at the artists on the bill. There’s some real energy and huge talent there that will light up the arena stage and make what is a quite a tricky space to perform in, seem like a concert in your own front room. If you are a fan of Carly Pearce or Brothers Osborne, is it bad that you’ve seen them before? It’s a weird attitude to have that once you’ve seen an artist live once, that should be it and you won’t ever need to see them again. Isn’t that treating them a little like zoo animals with some sort of novelty value rather than musicians who are flying across a massive ocean to entertain you?
I Wish There Was Some More Country Music on the Bill
Oh, you scallywags! This snarky, oft-used barb is often deployed by older fans of Country music and people who’s interest in the genre dates back beyond the inaugural C2C festival and advent of the Nashville TV shows. There’s a little lingering snobbery and suspicion that Country music was a beatific thing before it was somehow cheapened by the advent of Pop, TV shows and Broadway-bound stag and hen nights. These people seem to forget that artists like Sugarland, Keith Urban and Chris Janson were all around in the noughties and that some of the most commercial music Country has ever produced is now part of the lauded history of the 90s.
Most recently the kind of ‘I wish there was some more Country music on the bill’ brigade have been able to unify behind the likes of Zach Bryan, Tyler Childers and Turnpike Troubadours and use them as examples of what should be on the stage of the O2 arena, not really understanding that none of those artists would actually want to play such an event or that it is not what the C2C festival is about. Indeed, two of those three aforementioned artists aren’t even Country music artists but that doesn’t stop some people! It’s akin to berating the Hay on Wye Book festival for not screening the movies you want to them to show. Oil and water and don’t mix, right? These people would be better off seeking out the artists at the wonderful Black Deer or Long Road festivals instead of continually trying to shove a square peg into a round hole.
All’s Well That End’s Well
We started with a quote from Dickens so let’s end with a reference to Shakespeare. This year’s line up is a stronger one than last year’s and it has the added shine of the ‘Jake Owen’ factor too. It’s not sensible to think that the organisers have the resources, clout or ability to fill the bill with the likes of Blake Shelton, Luke Bryan, Alan Jackson, Kenny Chesney, Brooks & Dunn and co when a huge chunk of those artists clearly cost too much and potentially have no interest in coming over to the UK anyway.
Too many people project their own wants and desires onto events in popular culture and then criticise them when they don’t turn out as they were expecting. It’s like the ‘terrible’ ending of the Game of Thrones TV show that so many people were furious about because it didn’t finish in the way that they wanted it too. It didn’t make it a bad ending, it just wasn’t what you decided it should be. The same goes for the C2C festival, just because you wanted Kenny Chesney and Blake Shelton doesn’t mean it isn’t going to be one hell of a weekend.
This year’s bill is a vibrant one, jam-packed with classy artists like Carly Pearce and energetic whirling dervishes like Kane Brown and Drake Milligan. It’s going to be potentially the most ‘action packed’ C2C in a while in terms of the songs, the choruses, the lights and the guitars (We see you, John Osborne!). This is the kind of Country music that C2C covers and if that’s not your kind of Country music, there’s still plenty out there that is as the genre continues to flourish on these shores under the steady hand of the organisers of the Black Deer and Long Road festivals. Between the three main festivals there is a little something for everyone available right now. C2C is, and was always, meant to promote Music Row, the labels and the commercial side of the industry and we love them for it.
Now, go get your tickets for next year’s festival.
