Not only due to the high effort of Sound of Nashville, there seems to be quite a bit of development in the German country concert scene. However, major international country music summer festivals are rare. Thus, it felt very welcome when Semmel Concerts and their country music concert label announced the first edition of the Sound of Nashville Open Air in my home town Cologne. The two day festival was in fact held on an untypical schedule: while the first day was held on Friday, 23rd August 2024, the second festival day was Sunday. Here is my concert report of the Friday shows.

This posting comes with 593 major size pictures as part of the concert gallery.

 

Die Kantine (Freideck) – About The Venue

 

I have been to Die Kantine and their smaller venue, the Yard Club, multiple times. However, the Sound of Nashville Open Air 2024 has been the first time I have visited their open air space Freideck. It has a capacity of roughly 950 people. Some 500 people were around for the Randall King show. The venue is located in the North of Cologne. Parking situation is a bit of difficult, but the place at the Neusser Straße can be rather easily reached by public transport. Tram lines 12 and 15 frequently connect nearby Wilhelm-Sollmann-Straße to central Cologne.

Sound of Nashville Open Air (Day 1) – About The Artists

The headliner of the first festival day was Randall King.The Texas origin artist is releasing music since 2011. Randall King recently releaased his 18 song album Into The Neon. It is his fourth studio album overall. In September 2023, I featured a Randall Kng show in Cologne.

The second key artist was a good, old friend of the German country music scene, Kyle Daniel.He came just for the show from England and headed back there for the Long Road Festival soon after his set. In July 2024, Kyle Daniel released his debut album Kentucky Gold (however, there have been multiple EPs before). I also recently featured the EP Southern Song by the band Van Winkle & the Spirits, of which Daniel is part of.

 

Female Country Power on Friday

On top of the two main acts, two country music ladies were on stage in Cologne. One of them was Brittney Spencer, She is a Maryland-origin artist born in 1988. Comparably late, in 2020, she turned into a professional musician. In January 2024, she released her debut album My Stupid Life.

The opening act for this festival debut, however, was Meg McRee. Right after graduation in Georgia, McRee moved to Nashville. She signed her first publishing deal in 2021, releasing music since 2022. So far, there have been two major releases of her, the album Is It Just Me? and the EP History of Heartbreak, both released during 2023.

 

Sound of Nashville Open Air (Day 1) – The Show

Meg McRee opened the festival at 15:30 with her one hour set (all other artists played for 80 minutes). The number of visitors was still rather low and McRee needed a bit of time to catch the front rows with their show. Her set was rather straight and also contained songs which haven’t been released yet. There were also some covers. A nice set, which, however, lacked the catch of a typical festival opener, who is kicking the people with some musical energy.

Sound of Nashville surprisingly presented an act in the intermissions between the acts. On this first day, it was Tyler Sjöström. He has Swedish ancestry, but is in fact a US-American artist. Just using his voice and his guitar, he attracted the crowds in short three song sets with songs like Red River.

Brittney Spencer took the festival main stage as the second artist. She felt very energetic and caught the people with her performance. Her 80 minute set opened with First Car Feeling from her My Stupid Life album. In the middle of the set, she also played an acoustic part. Surprisingly, her biggest song so far (based on Spotify), Sober & Skinny was not part of her songs. However, she also convinced the German crowd with other originals like Bigger Than The Song or the Willie Nelson cover On The Road Again.

 

Kyle Daniel and Randall King rocked Cologne

The Sound of Nashville Festival in Cologne was Kyle Daniel’s first full band show in Germany. The domestic fans already loved him before the show, but the power of playing with a band boosted his music to another level. He kicked off a country-rock party near the River Rhine. However, apart from powerful tracks like Fire Me Up or Summer Down South, there were also some quieter and more emotional moments. He also praised his home state Kentucky with Wild, Free and Easy. The set closed with songs like Luke Comb’s Beer Never Broke My Heart and Can’t Hold Me Back. I am sure many fans already looked forward to Friday the following week, when Daniel would be back in Cologne, supporting Southall.

With Randall King, the Kantine Freideck did not just see his main act, but also another very catching performance. King opened with Tonk ‘Til I Die and Baby Do. For the third song, When My Baby’s In Boots, he went down to the Cologne people for the first time. Overall, King fest very close to the audience, who thanked him with German music love. Fans of the more emotional songs got their hearts warmed with songs like Mirror, Mirror. In later parts of the set, songs like Another Bullet or Hey Cowgirl, the closing song, gave a nice range of the Randall King discography as well.

 

Sound of Nashville Open Air (Day 1) – The Gallery

Here are 593 major size pictures of the show. They are located in the concert gallery:

• 2024-08-23 Sound of Nashville Open Air Day 1

 

Sound of Nashville Open Air – Day 2 Post

Here is my concert report of the second day of the Sound of Nashville Open Air 2024:

Sound of Nashville Open Air 2024 (25th August 2024, Day 2, Cologne)

 

Sound of Nashville Open Air (Day 1) – My View

Having a Friday and Sunday festival (with a lately announced community Saturday…) and the Gamescom in parallel might have reduced the audience for the Sound of Nashville in parallel. However, this debut event showed that it comes with a lot of potential and could develop to one of the few country music summer festivals in Germany with international acts. Friday was already a big country music party – Sunday might be even more promising.

 

Country Music Reviews 2024 – 4.5 or better

Here are all my Media Reviews related to country music, closing with a rating of 4.5 or better:

 

Kyle Daniel postings

Here are all my posts related to country music artist Kyle Daniel: