Fan Review – Lady Antebellum – London, England – August 11, 2010

14 years ago Liv Carter 1

Lady Antebellum – Charles Kelley (lead and backing vocals), Hillary Scott (lead and backing vocals) and Dave Haywood (backing vocals, piano, guitar and mandolin) – were in the UK promoting their latest record, ‘Need You Now’.

Their one and only concert on these shores took place last night (Wednesday 11th August) at London’s O2 Shepherds Bush Empire. The place was packed to the rafters with what appeared to be a good mix of fans, old and new. This is quite a feat as the band was only formed four years ago in Nashville, home of ‘country’ music. Not much evidence of what many in the UK would call ‘country’ music last night though.

No fiddle, no mandolin just a great rock band with vocalists Charles and Hillary producing some fantastic harmonies.

Lady Antebellum kicked off their 80 minute set with ‘Stars Tonight’ and then virtually straight into ‘Love Don’t Live Here’. The whole performance was full of energy, one song moving swiftly into the next, leaving little time to converse with the audience. But converse they did on the occasions the set needed the addition or removal of chairs or the repositioning of the baby grand for Dave. The trio appeared genuinely humbled by the reception they were receiving and were constantly surprised that the appreciative crowd knew and could sing the lyrics.

Throughout the set, time was made for everyone. The backing band, bass and lead guitarist, drums and keyboards were featured and the guitarists were often encouraged to the front of the stage. On another occasion, ‘All We’d Ever Need’, the first song they wrote together as a band, saw the backing band leaving the stage to Hillary, Charles and Dave to perform acoustically.

The bands own big-number compositions were all there – ‘American Honey’, ‘I Run To You’ and ‘Need You Now’ along with some classic covers including the iconic Tom Petty number, ‘Free Fallin”, which had the audience in full sing-along mode. Radiohead‘s ‘High and Dry’ which Charles quipped was a ‘shameless attempt to befriend everybody’ while performing for the BBC earlier in the week.

‘Need You Now’ was probably the highlight of the evening for most fans but surprisingly was not the ‘encore’ song. This was to be another cover, nothing less than the Beatles‘ ‘Hey, Jude’. Now, I’m too old and too ugly to ever concede there could ever be a better rendition than that performed by the ‘fab four’ but Lady A’s version was certainly not out of place with the rest of their set, and brought to end a great night.

Finally, as the band left the stage to an extremely appreciative crowd it was left to Hillary to say that the nights gig was to be the first of many to come.

– The Dawg

Lady Antebellum – London, England – Set List:

Stars Tonight
Love Don’t Live Here
Perfect Day
When You Got A Good Thing
All We’d Ever Need
High and Dry (Radiohead cover)
American Honey
Slow Down Sister
R.O.C.K. in the USA (John Mellencamp cover)
Our Kind of Love
Hello World
Need You Now
Looking For A Good Time
Free Fallin’ (Tom Petty cover)
Run To You
Hey, Jude (Beatles cover)

Liv Carter

Liv Carter

Liv is a career coach for creatives, and the people who work with them.
She holds several certificates from Berklee College of Music, and a certificate in Positive Psychology from UC Berkeley.
Her main influences are coffee, cats, and Alexander Hamilton.
Liv Carter

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