A Night to Remember: Andrew Combs, Country 2 Country, March 13th 2016

When people ask me who the best people I’ve ever seen live are, I would often say Springsteen, Brothers Osborne or Chris Stapleton. The fact that Chris Stapleton played at the gig I’m writing about and I haven’t chosen him as my ‘A Night to Remember’ shows what an impression the artist in question made on me.

Having started to follow country and americana music in late 2015, my Dad had suggested we head to Country 2 Country music festival in 2016 in London. Unsure, as there is a lot of country music that is pretty naff, I headed along nevertheless, on a Sunday that had Eric Church headlining, with an undercard of Kacey Musgraves (another artist I could have written about here), Chris Stapleton, and a smaller artist by the name of Andrew Combs.

I didn’t know a lot about Andrew Combs, but I thought it best for me to head into the main arena to see him as he must be relatively good to be alongside these major names.

Combs only played seven songs but his set made a massive impression on me, in particular a song called ‘Emily’. Combs may come across an unbelievably relaxed individual, but with ‘Emily‘, he got the crowd involved in what was a brilliant and fun song.

In fact, after Country 2 Country, I listened to it so much with my brother that we are convinced we single-handedly pushed it to No.1 on Andrew Combs’ Spotify charts.

The gig is one that I will always remember as it was one of my first steps into the scene, and alongside Stapleton and Musgraves, who were already excellent performers, Combs was special as he felt like a secret act that I had found that was equally brilliant.

I’ve gone on to listen to a variety of albums and songs by Combs and am hoping he comes back to the UK soon so I can enjoy seeing him in a more intimate setting.