Wagon Wheel

After two years off due to Covid, Country 2 Country has been back this weekend, with the artists rotating between Glasgow, Dublin and London as usual. It feels like another welcome step towards to normality. I decided to buy tickets for just one evening because there’s only so much Country music that James can tolerate. Having perused the programme I decided to go for Sunday night, which featured Scotty McCreery, Brett Young and Darius Rucker, none of whom I have seen before. I was actually having difficulty choosing between Darius Rucker and Luke Combs, who was headlining on Friday night, and I decided on Darius Rucker because Luke Combs is considerably younger than him so hopefully we will have many more years in which to see him. I don’t mean that Darius Rucker is very old - he’s only 55 - but it was the only way I could think of to choose. 

And it was a great evening. I thought that Brett Young probably had the best voice out of the three, but they were all good. My favourite songs by Brett were “In Case You Didn’t Know” and “Let’s Just Stay Here Tonight.” Darius had great songs and a great stage personality, having fun with his band. I liked “Southern State of Mind,” “Alright by Me” and Hank Williams Jr.’s a “Family Tradition” which the audience loved and sang the chorus as a call and response; “Why do you drink?” “TO GET DRUNK!” “And why do you roll smokes?” “TO GET HIGH!” etc. His final encore was my old favourite “Wagon Wheel” which was fantastic and always brings back memories of an amazing night out in the Tarbert Hotel, Harris in September 2012. 

James however didn’t quite share my emotions; he is not the greatest fan of country music. He looked at aircraft websites in his phone throughout the evening, described Brett Young as “unsavoury” (he’s not!) and even said that Darius Rucker couldn’t sing. Sacrilege! It was nice of him to come along but I honestly don’t think there’s any point in taking James to any more Country music concerts.