UPDATE: Due to the ongoing impact of Coronavirus (COVID-19), C2C Festival has been postponed to March 11-13, 2022.
All C2C 2020 tickets will be valid for the 2022 festival, or you can contact your point of purchase to obtain a refund.
More details to follow.
C2C Country To Country festival was all set to come back for its eight year in March 2020 and there had been hope that it would still be able to take place. Just 24 hours before the postponement announcement, stage times were released on the official app.
Due to concerns about the spread of COVID-19, Old Dominion had already withdrawn from all C2C dates: “with the growing uncertainty and unpredictable nature of the virus that is spreading throughout the world, the safety and security of our entire team is the top priority.” In their place were due to be the UK’s biggest selling country act, The Shires. They would have been the first UK act to perform on the C2C Arena mainstage.
The shows at The O2 in London, 3 Arena in Dublin and SSE Hydro in Glasgow were set to feature:
Eric Church
Darius Rucker
Luke Combs
The Cadillac Three
Old Crow Medicine Show
The Shires
Brett Young
Tanya Tucker
Charles Esten
Runaway June
Jordan Davis
Abby Anderson
Eric Paslay
Tenille Townes
and an array of bands on the much anticipated festival stages, including the Country Hits Radio session stage.
What were the day splits?
Eric Church, The Cadillac Three, Charles Esten, Abby Anderson, Eric Paslay and Tenille Townes were meant to play London on Friday March 13, Glasgow on Saturday March 14 and Dublin on Sunday March 15, 2010. It would have been a good day for Erics!
Darius Rucker, Old Crow Medicine Show, The Shires and Runaway June were planned for Dublin on Friday March 13, London on Saturday March 14 and Glasgow on Sunday March 15, 2010. It was going to be a good day for wagon wheels!
Luke Combs, Brett Young, Tanya Tucker and Jordan Davis were slated for Glasgow on Friday March 13, Dublin on Saturday March 14 and London on Sunday March 15, 2020. It would have been a great day for fans of legend Tanya Tucker!
‘Whispering Bob’ Harris was loud and proud about coming back for C2C!
The main stage action was going to be hosted by living legend DJ and presenter ‘Whispering Bob’ Harris OBE.
“I am so proud to be part of the C2C family. I have been the main stage host at the O2 in London from the very beginning and have watched the festival grow to become one of the most important and iconic events in the global Country Music calendar…I can’t wait to listen to the best music in the world, enjoy the fantastic atmosphere of the main auditorium, catch the excitement of the pop-up stages and meet the incredible Country fans that make C2C so special.”
Bob Harris during the C2C 2020 official launch party at Cadogan Hall during Country Music Week
Artist profiles
So, let’s take a closer look at some of the artists on the special line-up, with the hopes that they will be able to appear on the rescheduled dates. Three-time Country Music Association and six-time Academy of Country Music Award winner Eric Church recently broke Nashville’s Nissan Stadium attendance record (56,521 country fans), beating a previous record set by…him!
Darius Rucker of Hootie and The Blowfish recently wowed with a UK tour and was going to return as a solo artist. Since releasing his first country album in 2008, he has earned four No. 1 albums on the Billboard Country chart and nine No. 1 singles on country radio. In 2014, Rucker won his third career GRAMMY Award for Best Solo Country Performance with his 4x Platinum-selling cover of Old Crow Medicine Show/Bob Dylan’s Wagon Wheel. (Sorry that it’s stuck in your head now!)
Luke Combs was the best-selling make country artist of 2019, and he won the coveted Performance of The Year at the 2019 CMT Awards as well as Top Country Artist, Top Country Male Artist and Top Country Album at the 2019 Billboard Music Awards. He is also the first artist to simultaneously top all five Billboard country charts for multiple weeks: Top Country Albums, Hot Country Songs, Country Airplay, Country Streaming Songs and Country Digital Song Sales. To top off a stellar year, he was recently inducted as the newest member of the Grand Ole Opry.
The Shires are the UK’s best selling country act and will be playing songs from their forthcoming album, Good Years, as well as fan favorites like Nashville Grey Skies and State Lines.
Old Crow Medicine Show: They’ve been inducted into the Grand Ole Opry and won two Grammy awards though they’re undoubtedly best known for Wagon Wheel – written around a Bob Dylan demo – which has sold over a million copies and was propelled to further fame when it was covered by Darius Rucker. It’s not lost on us that they were going to play on the same night at C2C. Were we due to see something special?
Tanya Tucker is a veritable country legend. She had her first hit, Delta Dawn, at the age of 13 in 1972. Since then she’s released 23 Top 40 albums and 56 Top 40 singles, ten of which reached No. 1 on the Billboard country charts. She’s won two CMAs, two ACMs, three CMT awards and ten GRAMMY nominations. She was going to showcase songs from While I’m Living, her first album of all new material in 17 years which was produced by Brandi Carlile and Shooter Jennings.
Charles Esten is known for his role as Deacon Claybourne in the hit show NASHVILLE but you’ll barely believe what other great shows of the ’90s and ’00s he was in. He’s also a prolific songwriter and a major philanthropist, so he’s always good for a show full of songs and stories. He’s currently touring the UK culminating with a headline show at London’s prestigious Royal Albert Hall for Country Music Week.
Tenille Townes has been tipped as one of Amazon Music and IHeartRadio’s 2019 Artists to Watch, as well as CMT’s Next Women of Country and in the inaugural Opry NextStage group of stars in the making. Townes has been picked to tour with Miranda Lambert and Maren Morris. She recently won the most awards at the Canadian Country Music Awards – all four she was nominated for – namely Female Artist of the Year, Single of the Year , Anthem Entertainment Songwriter of the Year and Video of the Year (which was a collaoration with Brandi Carlile).
She’s always thrilled to play for UK fans again, having just played her first ever headline show to a sold out Country Music Week crowd (after a venue upgrade) who sang along and hung on every word.
Townes’ upcoming album will feature that poignant song, Somebody’s Daughter, and her new single, another tearjerker, Jersey On The Wall. Like Esten, she’s also a philanthropist and also currently touring the UK during Country Music Week.
With the inevitability that not all artists will be able to make the new dates, we hope there’s a chance for a few a few more women and UK country acts to be added to the bill.
Most of all though, commiserations to all the fans, artists and crew who have lost out on travel costs, and our thoughts go out to the organisers who were faced with such a stressful unprecedented circumstance.