REVIEW
words: ‘Bohemian Rhapsody’. Every word sang by,
I’m pretty sure, every audience member. They
weren’t finished with the British rock greats yet
though. Later The Who were given the ZBB
country treatment, with their version of ‘Baba
O’Riley’.
From the covers to the collaborations, ZBB
brought every us every element enjoyed through
the festival in other sets and said, “I think we can
do better than that”. You felt in the presence of
greatness as Marty Stuart joined the band on
stage for ‘Keep Me in Mind’ and a 5-minute
thrilling demonstration of his mastery as a
guitarist, that frankly could only be viewed in
awe. Even Zac looked on in sheer wonderment
and he’s no slouch himself.
They wrapped up with the beautiful ballad,
‘Colder Weather’, another example of Brown et al’s
mastery as song writers, followed by crowd
favourites ‘Jump Right In’ and ‘Beautiful Drug’. An
hour and 45 minutes thrilling journey through
every nuance of the country genre (rock, blues,
soul, reggae, maybe more) came to a fitting end
with ‘Chicken Fried’, probably the closest ZBB get
to stadium country. The Zac Brown Band
brought sheer joy to a lot of exhausted country
fans that night, and I don’t see how anyone
could have asked for more. Zac Brown, Coy
Bowles, Clay Cook, Daniel de los Reyes, Matt
Mangano, Jimmy De Martini, Chris Fryar, John
Driskell Hopkins – we salute you.
soaring singalong country melodies. ‘Gettin’ You
Home’, ‘Voices’, ‘I Can Take It From There’ and the
beautiful ‘Who I Am With You’ came next. As we
went live on BBC Radio 2, Young told us: “we
wanna give em a party now” and ‘Aw Naw’ was
just the track to do that.
Young shared the news that just before he got
on the plane to come over to the UK, he found
out that ‘Sober Saturday Night’ had just gone to
number one in the US. It’s a song well known to
UK fans as it has been playing on Chris Country
Radio for months now. A duet with the revered
Vince Gill, whom Young greatly admires, it is
another of his soaring ballads, with a heart-
breaking video to match.
The intro of ‘Think Of Me’ rang out as 20,000
people held their breath in anticipation that this
might be the much speculated about moment:
will Cassadee Pope join Young on stage for their
Grammy nominated duet? There she was in time
for her part of the first verse, the first of the
many main stage collaborations over the
weekend and one of the best. When interviewed
on the Red Carpet at this year’s Grammy's and
asked what sparked the collaboration, Chris
responded: “I heard her sing…you hear her sing
one time and you’re like good Lord she’s good”.
Fair.
Chris is one of the most charming people in
country music and he knows how to tell a self-
deprecating story, which made his hilario us tale
mid-performance of 'You', about the challenges
of the high note at the end and the
embarrassment it caused on national TV, a
highlight. Of course, he went on to execute the
high note perfectly to rapturous applause.
'Save Water Drink Beer', 'Tomorrow', 'Neon' and
‘I’m Comin’ Over’ to finish. Hit after hit after hit,
an uplifting set from country’s nicest guy. The
country boy from Murfreesboro, Tennessee
done good.
Main Stage Highlight
CHRIS YOUNG
From the very first notes of ‘Underdogs’ we
knew we were in for a great 75 minutes of
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