Festival Roundup - The Long Road 2026

 

“We can build our own Nashville

Underneath these grey skies”

Never has this line sung by The Shires on Friday night at The Long Road Festival been more apt.  On Thursday, Friday, and Saturday grey skies gave way to rain and storms, but spirits weren't dampened.  Yes, there were stages closed, evacuations for safety and some mud underfoot – but what’s a festival without a bit of mud?  Ok, quite a lot of mud!  Walking - or squelching - our way around the site, we saw some imaginative ways of dealing with the weather – ponchos, shower caps for hats, and the one young lady repurposing an Ariat t-shirt bag (whilst never letting go of her Pint) – we salute you!

The Long Road is the fashionista festival of country, with attendees planning their outfits for months with lots of chatter about it on social media. While  the weather did seem to reduce the usual fantastic array of festival outfits, some were undeterred and wore them anyway, while others dressed for the weather.  Many people managed to combine Country Chic with Waterproof Chic – we could probably do a whole feature on waterproof coats (dry robes especially in fashion this year) but the dogs certainly made an effort and camping trolleys were well decorated! Perhaps next year the festival could import the idea of “drying tunnels” from American theme parks – surely perfect for UK bank holiday weather, and might reduce the number of wet guests deciding to cut their visit short.

But in between the rain, we did Build Our Own Nashville...looking out across the sea of heads in front of the Rhinestone stage wearing cowboy hats and trucker caps, thousands of country fans came together for another large UK country festival, following on from C2C, Country Calling and Garth Brooks headlining BST at Hyde Park - something that might have been beyond a dream ten years ago.  Many artists commented on the growth of Country Music in the UK, and it goes beyond listening to American bands, as some genuine homegrown talent made their main stage debt – First Time Flyers on Saturday, Kezia Gill fulfilling her dad’s prophecy and her dream on Sunday, plus 2025 talent Show winner Liam Price showing this year’s contestants what is possible as he too took to the biggest stage on Sunday Morning.  Friday Night, that stage belonged to the biggest band in UK Country Music – The Shires – returning to the festival that they first performed at in 2018.

 

2026 was, sadly, the year of Dolly.  All around the site were tributes to the Queen of Country music, with tribute walls to sign and leave messages on, a “What Would Dolly Do” display and a touching video montage ahead of the Sunday Night Headliner Maren Morris.  From every stage you could hear artists paying their own tribute, choosing from her 3,000 songs.

The attraction of The Long Road is the variety.  As you wander around, you’ll find a range of country music on the various stages – from open mic sessions on the relocated Showground stage, to barnstorming shows in the (thankfully covered) Interstate and definitely some new discoveries deep in the woods at Buddy’s Good Time Bar.  It was there that we saw “Queer Cxuntry”, unashamedly LGBT and unashamedly creating a truly amazing party experience.

There’s also the chance to go fantasy car shopping at the Lucky Dice Car show, real shopping with the range of traders who can supply you with bespoke jewellery, bespoke hats or even a whole new outfit – especially useful on a wet weekend!  The food offering was as big as ever this year, with festivalgoers sharing benches and sharing tips for what to try for your evening meal.

Despite the weather, this year’s Long Road saw a lot of first-time visitors, and they will surely join the many who return year on year, buying their tickets before the line up is announced.  If you are one of those – early bird tickets go on sale tomorrow!

 

Whenever you buy your ticket, we’ll see you next year, and we'll once again… welcome back old friends…

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Silverball Country attended The Long Road as media guests of the organisers and WMA Agency

Gig Review - Alyssa Bonagura - Hare and Hounds Birmingham

 

Birmingham has always had a thriving music scene, birthplace to (among others) UB40, Duran Duran, Ozzy Osborne and host to many touring acts, recently including The Shires at Town hall supported by a certain Alyssa Bonagura.  

Kings Heath’s Hare and Hounds - itself an iconic venue – was the venue for the first date of Nashville Unicorn Alyssa Bonagura on her first ever headline tour.  We call her a Unicorn because she's a Nashville native, growing up on a tour bus as the only child of travelling musicians with Baille & The Boys.  Despite her American upbringing, Alyssa has a real fondness for the UK, having performed here many times and graduating from Liverpool Institute Of Performing Arts.

Opening for her Birmingham show were close friends and Brum natives Gasoline and Matches.  Equally accomplished as an acoustic duo and a full band, tonight saw just Sally and Steve on stage entertaining the crowd with personal stories, and songs from their ever-growing catalogue.  Both could relate the story of when they first saw Alyssa when she was playing as part of duo The Sisterhood and how their friendship grew, including hosting her as part of their popular “Nashville Sounds In The Round” literally across the road in the intimate Kitchen Garden Café.  Its not a Gasoline and Matches set unless they finish with their popular drinking game/song “Never Have I Ever” which was joined in with gusto – despite it being a school night for most!

 

Alyssa took to the stage with a cry of “Are You Ready To Rock?” and for the next hour or so showed us what can be achieved with just two guitars and excellent songwriting.  Three guitars – she took delight in playing a beautiful blue guitar that was just “£80 in Denmark street”

 

Alyssa was accompanied on stage by Steve Shirley who plays lead guitar and boyfriend!  Together for two years, Welsh born Steve brings his own Birmingham connection having graduated from the University of Birmingham with a degree in Physics – “Shout out to all UoB physicists” was possibly the most niche shout out ever!

 

Its very clear how much Alyssa loves being on stage – and it doesn’t matter how big the stage.  She’s performed all over the world but seems incredibly at home in any venue. Talking about how much she enjoys hearing stories of how her fans relate to her stories she described her audiences as “We start as

strangers but leave as friends”.  The whole set could be best described as upbeat acoustic with songs drawn from across many years.  “This could be my Eras Tour” she said before inviting the audience to suggest what they sing next – which did mean a little bit of discussion over how songs start and showed that Steve isn’t just a guitarist/boyfriend but a great support to her on stage. Writing “happier songs” over the past two years, even Alyssa’s more heartfelt songs still have an element of energy to them, and we were all thrilled to light up our phones in memory of friend and collaborator Roman in a lovely tribute.

 

I caught up with Alyssa after the show, and after she’d taken time with every audience member – signing merch, posing for selfies – and asked her, after a lifetime touring, how different this – her first headline tour – feels

 

It’s a dream come true.  I’ve been wanting to do this since I was a little kid and its crazy when people buy tickets to your show and your able to pack out a venue.  Tonight was sold out.

It’s a total dream come true

 

In the words of her song Road Less Travelled

 

I ain't gonna chase money or fame

I'm just gonna do what makes me smile

 

You can catch Alyssa on her UK tour for the rest of June as well as find her on Facebook & Instagram and follow her on Spotify

Silverball Country attended the show as guests of Alyssa Bonagura and Gasoline and Matches 

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Gig Review - The Shires at Birmingham Symphony Hall w/ Kezia Gill and Eric Paslay

 

On Tuesday night The Shires brought their UK tour to Birmingham, and for one night only we built our own Nashville in the grand surroundings of the Symphony Hall.  The audience weren’t quite the Cowboys and Cowgirls that we see when American Artists are in town, it was a more mature crowd, with more reading glasses on heads than Stetsons.

 

We were thrilled to be attending as guests of B:Music who run the Symphony Hall and excited to see the Shires again, having last seen them perform their acoustic set at Buckle and Boots last year – but we were equally looking forward to seeing the opening artist. 

 

Kezia Gill has been on tour with Chrissie and Ben for what seems like months, travelling up and down the UK on the tour bus with her trusty hot water bottle!  Being a Derby girl, Birmingham was almost a home town gig for her  being “just down the road” and when she introduced herself to the audience she was pleased that finally she had a crowd who might understand her! Kezia also mentioned that she had in fact played the Symphony Hall before, albeit to an empty auditorium for a lockdown livestream.  We only had 20 minutes of Kezia but she filled her time superbly with Silverball Country’s favourite songs and stories.  Opening with Country Song from her Mess I Made ep, she followed it up with Local Man’s Star which brought the room to silence, dedicating her performance to her late father with a look heavenwards as she finished.  Moving on to Thirties, Kezia introduced the song with almost a monologue about growing old demonstrating how at ease she is with a crowd, winning them over and entertaining them.  With all her songs written from her real life, Kezia told us after the show that this makes it easy to talk about each track before singing it.  I’m Here, then a great choice of final song in Whiskey Drinking Woman to finish her all too brief set; thrilling the crowd by holding the last note. She left stage to great applause and a lengthy interval queue at her merch stand.

 

Eric Paslay was the second of the support acts.  A very accomplished song writer, Eric has quite a pedigree with songs he has written for other people which he dotted into his set along with a U2 cover and – surprisingly – a country take on Dua Lipa.  Perhaps more of a writer than performer, Eric is also more of a singer than talker, although he did loosen up as time went on.  The audience warmed to him and were more than happy to hold up their phone to recreate the memory of his friends best ever gig back at JFK stadium with 50,00-60,000 lighters back in the day. His best quote was probably about Nashville – where most residents are not Nashville natives but people who have made their way there – “We’re all just crazy dreamers” those born and raised are unicorns. Asking where members of the crowd were from, he spotted a few local unicorns but become unstuck with the pronunciation of Stourbridge. He declared he would like to visit the exotic take on Tower Bridge, but we fear he may be disappointed.

 

After the interval it was time for what everyone had been waiting for – and had been waiting for longer because of the enforced delay to the full tour.  The band walked on to a pounding beat, Chrissy and Ben walked on and the crowd rose to their feet - in fact Ben asked them to rise and directed the standing/sitting throughout the night. The Shires are the anointed representatives of UK Country Music with their brand commercial, pop influenced country music.  They clearly share a passion for the genre, having teamed up ten years ago when Chrissy answered a Facebook ad for a female country singer.  They have gone from strength to strength since those days, as witnessed by a near sold out 2,500 seat hall in Birmingham, and fans who sang along, clapped and danced when instructed to for A Thousand Hallelujahs!  Despite being pregnant – with twins! – Chrissy didn’t falter and didn’t make use of the seat on stage, although she did confess that trainers have now replaced heels with her stage outfit.  Daddy’s Little Girl drew tears, I See Stars had the auditorium lit up with mobile phones and Nashville Grey Skies was sung by pretty much every voice in the crowd.

 

It was great to see a UK Country act performing in a big venue, and also great that one of the support acts was one of our own.  Being in the Midlands if only for a day, Kezia was able to spend some time with husband Lloyd which possibly prompted her final comment to us

“It's a mix of wanting to go home and have a home cooked meal - and never wanting the tour to end”

 

We hope that both Kezia and the Shires enjoy the last 5 dates of the tour – as will anyone who has tickets for the last shows.

 

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