This Monday we caught up with Nashville-based country band Old Dominion in Manchester. Over the last few years, they’ve made several appearances in the UK, including performing with Thomas Rhett, playing at the Country to Country Festival as well as their UK tour last November. Now it seems they have established their name firmly in the UK country scene, seeing the sizeable number of fans that turned up in support of this band. In this review I have included the songs that made the biggest impression on me.

With a strong turnout, the audience were definitely up for it by greeting them with chants of the chorus to their opening song ‘Snapback’, which was released in 2015.

Described as contemporary country, with elements of rock instrumentals and hip-hop overtones, the band had instantly won the crowd over. Keeping it upbeat, they progressed into ‘Hotel Key’, one of their popular songs released back in April 2018, which was then followed by ‘Be with Me’.

Next up was ‘One Man Band’, their latest single from their forthcoming self-titled album due to be released on the 25th of October. With the track being featured on a range of popular country playlists, as well as achieving major US airplay in addition to being certified Gold, it wasn’t surprising the crowd knew every word. The band continued with a mix of songs, past and present, including fan-favourite 'Break Up with Him'.

Throughout the set, Old Dominion commanded great stage presence and maintained regular interaction with the audience. During the performance of ‘Be with Me’, lead singer Matthew Ramsey mingled with the audience, throwing high-fives and holding fans’ hands. They also played ‘Shoe Shopping’, which was requested quite early.

From where I was standing the sound was great but I already knew it was a decent venue to watch gigs. Their vocals and harmonies were top notch and they remained tight as a band throughout. 

Midway through, the group split the performance up with an interesting feature, when Matthew Ramsey, Brad Tursi and Trevor Rosen reorganised on stage to perform a mixture of stripped-back covers, songs they had helped write for other major country artists. This fits nicely with the fact that Old Dominion was originally formed as a band to showcase songs that each member had written, so it was timely and refreshing to focus on each members’ individual talents in song-writing and performing. At this point we got to hear sections of other major country artists songs, including big hits like Blake Shelton’s ‘Sangria’, Luke Bryans ‘Light It Up’ and Sam Hunt’s ‘Make You Miss Me’. This also seemed like a great way to surprise unaware audience members with their song-writing talents.

The band re-formed to perform their next set of crowd pleasers, which included their famous ‘Written in the Sand’, and possibly my favorite of the night ‘New York at Night’, which is actually one of their lesser known numbers but fared just as well for the eager crowd. A heavier rock sound then followed with ‘Can’t Get You’. After an encore, the band closed the night with 'Make It Sweet', also from their upcoming album and the name of the tour. After performing well over 20 songs, the audience certainly got their money’s worth.

Overall, the group got a great reception from the audience. Providing a more upbeat country vibe - Old Dominion bring something a little different to the table.

Listen & pre-order their new album here.

 Country 

Author: Andrew Braithwaite

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