C2C headliner Lainey Wilson says UK 'caught on quicker' than Nashville

The Grammy award-winning country star is taking top billing at this year’s festival and recalls having ‘more of a fanbase in the UK’ than her native US initially

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Expect a sea of bell bottoms and cowboy hats as singer-songwriter Lainey Wilson takes to the stage at this year’s C2C: Country to Country.

This was the scene when she played two electric, sold out, and standing room only shows at the O2 Forum Kentish Town last spring.

“Standing room only!” she repeated in disbelief to The Standard afterwards. “I still can’t wrap my head around that. When I think about how far away from home I was. Guess I just never in a million years thought that a little girl who grew up in Baskin, Louisiana, in a town of 180-something people, that my story would relate to folks over there.

“I started wearing my bell bottoms and hat because it felt true to me and real to me and my story, and it’s just another way for me to be able to express myself like I do with my music. It’s fun to do.

Lainey Wilson’s fans love to emulate her bell bottoms and cowboy hat style at gigs

Getty Images

“When I looked out there it looked like straight-up bell bottom country; it looked like everyone had stepped out of the 70s. It was cool to see.”

You can tell it means the world to Wilson, who says she was initially written off by Nashville as “too country for country” due to her “twangy voice” and deeply personal songwriting style being in stark contrast to the pop-infused songs that were leading the genre.

The last time she performed at the UK’s biggest country music festival was in 2023 where she appeared third on the billing, beneath Thomas Rhett and Jordan Davis.

Since then, she has appeared in TV show Yellowstone, won a Grammy Award for her fourth studio album Bell Bottom Country, along with numerous other awards, and is now one of the biggest names in modern country music.

This is being recognised with her taking first billing in the C2C line-up this time around, headlining the London’s O2 Arena on March 14, Belfast’s SSE Arena on March 15 and Glasgow’s Ovo Hydro Arena on March 16.

And the Country’s Cool Again singer - who released her fifth album Whirlwind last August - says she will “never forget” the role the UK has played in her story so far.

She explained: “I will tell you I had more of a fanbase in the UK than I did over here [in the US] in the beginning. It’s like y’all caught on a lot quicker and a lot sooner than folks did over here and it’s very important for me to never forget that.”

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