I had a quite unfortunate timing with the debut of the German Country Music week. I missed some shows due to my vacation to Tenerife and then traveled to Gateshead instead of enjoying some of the German shows. The more I was looking forward to join the concert series in my hometown Cologne on 24th October 2019, when Scotty McCreery was on stage, supported by Temecula Road and Tebey. The shows were driven by the Sound of Nashville concert series.

This posting comes with a 261 major size picture gallery in the concerts gallery section.

 

Helios 37 Cologne – The Venue

This concert was honestly the first ever I had in the Helios 37. It is located in Cologne-Ehrenfeld, a part of Cologne, which is very well-known for its nightlife. Some other clubs like the YUCA, where I saw Lauren Jenkins in September, are very closeby. There are a lot of restaurants around, the transport connection by public transport is excellent. The club belongs to the nearby Live Music Hall, which is a comparably major capacity than the 250 ones official by the Helios 37, which got really, really warm and sweaty during the show. A typical former industrial workshop, not overwhelmingly charming, but the staff was amazingly friendly.

The concert was part of the German Country Music Week. If you booked early, you could have a series of concerts in Cologne for a very low price. The ordinary ticket price was 26 Euro. It was practically just possible to take pictures from various positions in the very rear of the hall, which lead to limited perspectives.

 

German Country Music Week – The Artists

Scotty McCreery headlined the show. He was born in 1993 in North Carolina. After some minor success in very young years, he became popular as being part of the tenth season of American Idol. Though he forgot the lyrics of one song in one of the solo performances and had to be accompanied by a parent during the show, he became the second youngest contestant ever to win the show in 2011, when he beat Lauren Alaina in the youngest-ever duel in the final. His debut album, Clear As Day topped the US as well as the US Country charts and also had placements in Canada and New Zealand. His 2012 album release was a christmas album. With singles taken out of the 2013 See you tonight album, he made it to the Country Top 10 and Country Airplay Top 10 for the first time. Two singles of the 2018 album, Five More Minutes and This is It, topped the US Airplay charts ant went Top 4 in the US as well as in the Canadian Country Charts. The latter one has some 55 million views on YouTube

At the time of the concert, Tebey is the only act, which is currently represented in my Country Music Playlists with his powerful single Demin on Demin. The 2018 song is however not the most successful track by the 36-year old artist from Ontario, who published his first single in 2003 and made it to the Top 10 of the Canadian Country charts already five times. His only chart-topper is Who’s Gonna Love You. A very remarkable success was a country music version of Avicii’s Wake Me Up, which made it up to place 5 in the Canadian charts. He is also a very successful songwriter.

Temecula Road are a Californian country music trio. Dawson and Emma are both 20, while Maddie is 18 and the youngest member of the band. Already some two and a half years ago, they had a quite significant hit with What If I Kissed You. Just the week before the concert, they released a new single, Maybe not.

 

German Country Music Week – The Show

The show started about 19:45 hrs. I was a bit surprised that Tebey was the opener of that evening. He played a some 25 minute set, which included his big songs like Denim on Denim and the Wake Me Up cover, but also songs he wrote for other artists, which covered a nice variety of songs.

Temecula Road started their set, which was slightly longer, at about 20:35. They played their first hits, but also covers like Desperado by The Eagles. Like Tebey, they obviously enjoyed the crowd in Cologne, which was enjoying the evening despite the heat and a quite packed venue.

When Scotty McCreery started his set at about 21:30, the people were cheered up. At the beginning of his set, he played some uptempo and party-like songs. This Is It was about the fifth song of his set, followed by another The Eagles cover this evening, Take It Easy. In the middle part of his set, he played his songs like Five More Minutes or Trouble With Girls. At the end of the set, he nearly performed something like a classic country medley with covers from a couple of big ones like Johnny Cash. He stopped after each song, but the series of songs was rather quick. I’m feeling it was the last song of the ordinary set, followed by the encore, which was Your Man by Josh Turner. While the band played on at the end of the song, McCreery already gave autographs to the fans from stage.

 

German Country Music Week – The Gallery

The major size versions of 261 pictures of the concerts are located in the concert galleries:

• 2019-10-24 Scotty McCreery

 

German Country Music Week – My View

To me, the shortest-playing act was the best one of the evening: Tebey was just amazing and demonstrated his amazing musical abilities – as a performer and as an creative songwriter. Not just having a Bluegrass-Avicii song in the swety Helios 37 was a real treat. On the other side, I expected a bit more of Temecula Road. The trio was not at all bad, but they made it just too easy not to listen to their tunes. Scotty McCreery blew away the tiny venue at the very beginning of his set and played a lovely finale – unfortunately, he could not fully keep up with this performance in the middle. There were also quite some songs he moderated as “one of my favorite songs”, which gets quite tiring in my point of view. Bad luck, his voice is awesome and he showed so much versatility in its use.

 

Postings about Concerts

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Flyctory.com about Germany

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