While C2C Has Three Male Headliners, Female Singers Brought Standing Ovations From Audiences
People from all over Europe attended the 3-day festival
Running from Stratford tube station Friday night, I and a trio of girls decked out with cowboy hats and boots, found ourselves a bit frazzled trying to make it to the 02 Arena, in time for the start of the Country 2 Country music festival. This year’s C2C London, as with all C2C music festivals, was abuzz with Country Music fans gathering from all over Europe to celebrate a genre of music that has gone from strength to strength over the years because of the honesty of three cords and the truth. Country Music always and forever will be relevant because it’s raw, genuine, and direct, and humans tend to gravitate towards the authentic.
The weekend included lots of line dancing moments | Photo Credit: Ruby Guant
Time Square saw Country Western attire on sale | Photo Credit: Ruby Gaunt
The three-day weekend between London, Dublin, and Glasgow draws hundreds of thousands to hear their favorite Country artists. This year’s headlining acts saw Kane Brown last night, and will see Brad Paisley, and Old Dominion with smaller acts including Carly Pearce, Lauren Alaina, Jake Owen, Brian Kelly, Priscilla Block, Brothers Osborne, Elle King, and Drake Milligan.
Lauren Alaina performing on Friday night | Photo Credit: Anthony Mooney
On Friday night from the London arena stage, Lauren Alaina sang Thicc As Thieves and Road Less Traveled. Wearing a black slip dress with red rose detailing and a thigh high slit and black boots, Alaina who married last month shared that her husband was in the audience. Then trio Chapel Hart Band sang on the Spotlight Stage bringing the audience to their feed with loud cheers as they sang Dolly Parton’s Jolene and their rendition twist, You Can Have Him Jolene.
In Carly Pearce’s opening song, she pulled out the guitar | Photo Credit: Anthony Mooney
And, Carly Pearce received a roaring several minute standing ovation at the end of her set, bringing the audience to their feet. She announced her 2025 Hummingbird tour in Europe, which will make stops in Stockholm, Munich, Oslo, London, Amsterdam, Manchester, Belfast, and Dublin. She sang songs from her new album Hummingbird, and hits like Never Wanted To Be That Girl, that she wrote and sand with Ashley McBryde, but performed on stage Friday night with Hannah Ellis.
One of the smaller stages, the European audience tends to take in singers in a different way to American audiences, hanging on to every word | Photo Credit: Ruby Gaunt
The weekend saw up and coming performances from Tennessee Twin, Jeff Cohen, Drayton Farley, Brooke Eden, and many others on smaller stages with people attending the festival from all across the UK, Scandinavia, Germany, France, and even Italy. Now that the festival is two days in, with one more day to go, hearts are already looking forward to next year.