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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