Country Music

After a tiring week, I was looking forward to going to Country to Country 2018 at the Hydro. I booked the tickets ages ago, with the idea of watching some top quality country music at this popular annual event. Country to Country has been going since 2013 in London, and then expanded to include Dublin, and last year Glasgow too, so it’s now a three day festival with the acts rotating around each venue. As it happens, Heather and Ewan watched the same artists on Friday night in London that we then saw on Saturday night in Glasgow. These were Old Dominion, Kelsei Ballerini, and finally the headliners; husband and wife Country royalty Faith Hill and Tim McGraw.*
Although I like country music when I come across it, I don’t know much about it and I thought that this would be a good and varied introduction.  It was certainly varied. Old Dominion seemed like a traditional country band although their music didn’t stand out for me. The very talented and enthusiastic Kelsei Ballerini reminded me (in looks) of a young Reese Witherspoon, and I liked her heartfelt love songs best out of the three. Faith Hill and Tim McGraw were very ..... loud. Their set seemed more like a rock band and I felt that they would have been much better in a smaller venue where they (particularly Faith) didn’t have to shout so much. I notice that Ewan (much more experienced in and knowledgable about country music than I) recommends smaller venues for country music in his blog. 

* Near the beginning of their set, in what he told us was his and his wife’s first ever visit to Scotland, Tim McGraw mentioned to the audience that they had played in London last night. I think that he was then going to say something along the lines that he had heard that Glasgow would be even better. However the deafening roar of boos and catcalls stopped him in his tracks, and the large screen caught a close up of Faith Hill looking genuinely shocked at the vitriolic wave of racism. True pros, they laughed it off, but I felt embarrassed for my people.