28. February 2025
Home » Music & Media » Concerts » Drake Milligan (25th February 2025, Cologne)
Concerts

Drake Milligan (25th February 2025, Cologne)

Florian Buechtingby Florian Buechting

Another Sound of Nashville country concert right before I headed to Pittsburgh: on 25th February 2025, Drake Milligan had a tour stage in my home town Cologne. It was the first time I went to Gloria Theater for a country music concert and a photo job. I really liked the venue as a visitor in previous occasions, so I was really looking forward to the show. Support act of the evening was Florian Fox.

 

This posting comes with 409 major size pictures as part of the concert gallery.

 

Gloria Theater – About The Venue

The Gloria in Cologne is a very traditional venue in the heart of the city. Located at the Apostelnstraße, it is just a few steps away from Neumarkt, from where you enter the main shopping district as well as being connected to multiple underground / tram lines. This includes direct connections to Cologne Main Station and to Cologne Trade Fair / Deutz station. The venue, which  nowadays can hold up to 900 people for concerts, has originally been a cinema and transformed to a party and cultural venue in 1991. A nice feature based on that original usage is that the floor is not flat, but higher towards the rear of the place. Drake Mulligan’s concert was sold out.

Drake Milligan – About The Artists

Drake Milligan is a 1998-born artist from Arlington, Texas, who nowadays lives in Nashville. The country singer became famous as a tribute artist for Elvis Presley, whom he starred in the CMT series Sun Records as well. In 2022, Milligan released his debut album Dallas/Fort Worth. In February 2024, he published his sophomore EP, Jukebox Songs. Together with The Reklaws, he had a chart-topping hit in Canada in 2023, Honky Tonkin’ About.

Milligan was supported by Florian Fox on this evening. He is a Swiss country artist from Meilen at Lake Zurich. With his school band The Black Barons, he won the Swiss New Artist Price. At the Texas International Country Music Awards, Fox has been awarded as the Entertainer of the Year in 2024. He is releasing music since 2021. In February 2025, he released his new EP, True Love.

 

Drake Milligan – The Show

Swiss people are punctual – and thus it was not that surprising that Florian Fox kicked off his 35 minute set exactly on 20:00. He majorly had originals like his second track, Friday Night. However, with 1, 2, Many (originally by Luke Combs feat. Brooks & Dunn), there were also some covers. Before that song, he praised Kölsch (Cologne style beer) as the best in the world. I wondered what he told the Munich audience the day before. Fox profited from the powerful sound of his band, which even featured a contrabass (later electric bass). The set ended with Georgia and the opening track of his current EP True Love, Home. The Cologne audience loved him and cheered for the Swiss artist.

 

Traditional Country Rock’n’Roll by Drake Milligan

Drake Milligan started his 21 song set at 21:01. He started his concert with two country classics, Blue Suede Shoes by Carl Perkins (or: Elvis, if you wish…) and The Fireman, originally by George Strait. At the third song Tipping Point, Milligan and his five musician band moved over the stage like ZZ Top. Cologne appreciated his very down to Earth and entertaining show, which also had some rather old-fashioned moves, but a nice mixture of songs. There were rather slow tracks like Slow Dancin’ to a Fast Song followed by party tracks like How Much Beer. The latter song was announced by Milligan with Nobody wrote a song about that topic in country music before… beer – and Cologne appreciated his sense of humor, two days before the inception of street carnival.

The traditional 1960’s and 1970’s country style stayed on. Another emotional highlight was the song right thereafter, Don’t Look Down. Here and there, there were covers like the Workin’ Man Blues by Merle Haggard or a Buck Owens cover. Milligan stated that both artists have been very influential to him. You felt the passion of the artist and his bandmates for his music in every second, so that Cologne had a really enjoyable evening.

 

 

Drake Milligan – The Gallery

Here are 409 major size pictures of the show. They are located in the concert gallery:

 

Drake Milligan – My View

Drake Milligan does not stand for the contemporary country music style, which is typically featured by Sound of Nashville. The more, this evening was special and brought a very different audience to this concert in the packed Gloria. I really liked Milligan’s charming, but also easy and relaxed style on stage. The traditional instrumentation gave some nice alternative and lead to an enjoyable evening. Florian Fox really nailed the evening as a support. First of all, he felt like the perfect support fit for the main act. However, his energetic show really heated up the Rheinland crowd – I am sure he could have played some carnival gigs after his set and Cologne would have loved that as well!

 

Concerts in Germany

Here are all my concert reports related to Germany:

 

Elvis Presley

Here are all postings related to Elvis Presley:

You might also like

C2C Country To Country Berlin – Day 2 (07.03.2020) – Splitter

BAP (13th December 2024, Cologne)

Alexandra Kay, Hannah Ellis, Lakeview (5th March 2024, Cologne)

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *