For all its respect for tradition and its appeal to conservative white America, country has lived long and prospered because it has never been afraid to evolve. As a result, this year’s Country 2 Country gathering of the tribe managed two near-O2 sell-outs. The audience may not have reflected London as a cosmopolitan melting pot but they were super-keen and young enough to ensure that country will not be retreating into its Texan heartland for some time.
Last night’s cheery headliner Brad Paisley looked like the archetypal country honcho — big white hat; jeans; small, slightly caddish Terry-Thomas moustache — and he paid homage to his genre with the self-explanatory This Is Country Music; the heartbreaking suicide ballad Whiskey Lullaby and Mud on the Tires. But Paisley took chances too. He guitar soloed like a rocker and sprinted through the crowd to a tiny stage near the back.
Southern Comfort Zone demolished perceptions about the American south, he covered Van Halen’s Hot for Teacher and, as if to prove the hat was a style choice rather than a baldness shield, he gave it away at the end.
Before that, Rascal Flatts featured the near-falsetto of Gary LeVox, harmonised like twangy angels and offered their own mighty ballad, Bless the Broken Road, while The Band Perry covered Queen’s Fat Bottomed Girls, but their leader Kimberly Perry offered both glamour and further hope for country’s future.