As this year's Sunday headliner at the Country to Country festival in London, the multi-platinum, Grammy Award-winning, Southern rock group led by frontman Zac Brown offered UK country music fans the chance to once again experience their outstanding, dynamic live performances that often defy genre boundaries.

Before their show, I was able to gain a little more insight into the band when I took part in a roundtable interview with them.

"Speaking to Zac Brown, I asked, 'You were just saying about Dave Grohl, and you’ve collaborated with some big artists, not always in country music but outside of it as well. Are there any other artists who you would like to team up with and collaborate?'"

"As Zac Brown explained during the interview, 'For me, my favourite female vocalist is Adele, and that’s a dream for me. I had an opportunity to meet Adele before 21 came out, and I didn’t know about her, and we had played our songs, and she came up to me and was like, “I really love your music,” and I was like, 'It’s nice to meet you.' I had no idea. Then a year after that, 21 came out, and I was like, 'Oh my god, I missed a chance to talk to her and try to do it,' so for me, it’s a bucket list item to get to do something with Adele, but I don’t know how I’m gonna pull that off.'"

The band then went on to explain that having a chance to play with Chris Cornell was unbelievable, and also playing with Dave Grohl. They also said that playing with Pearl Jam would be really cool and added that there’s more to come. Listen below.

Later that night, they produced a blistering performance to end the weekend's festival, with fan favourites such as ‘Knee Deep,’ ‘It’s Not OK,’ ‘Toes,’ ‘My Old Man,’ and ‘Same Boat’ garnering plenty of crowd participation. The night broke out into a perfect Sunday sing-a-long.

The set also featured several covers, and one of the highlights of the show was when Lindsay Ell joined the band on stage to perform a cover of Fleetwood Mac's 'Big Love' with Caroline Jones. Lindsay's incredible guitar solo during the song left the audience in awe, while Caroline's vocals were totally on point.

"Colder Weather" was the penultimate song. The beautifully crafted ballad was the perfect song to set the mood and scene of the weekend before bringing the house down with their biggest hit, “Chicken Fried,” which was a great end to the night.

Zac Brown Band set list: 1. Homegrown, 2. Knee Deep, 3. Free / Into the Mystic, 4. Dancing in the Dark (Bruce Springsteen cover) / Sex on Fire (Kings of Leon cover), 5. It’s Not OK, 6. Toes, 7. My Old Man, 8. As She’s Walking Away, 9. Paint it Black (The Rolling Stones cover), 10. Loving You Easy, 11. Jump Right In, 12. Sweet Annie, 13. Same Boat, 14. Big Love (Fleetwood Mac cover), 15. Out in the Middle, 16. Colder Weather, 17. Chicken Fried. 

Author: Andrew Braithwaite

Andrew is the founder and Managing Director of Music Talkers. He's also a keen music enthusiast and plays the guitar.