LIVE REVIEW: COUNTRY ON THE COMMON: TRAVELING BARN STAGE- MATT HODGES

Having received a raptuous response for his efforts at Buckle & Boots, it was time for Matt Hodges to head South to try to win over the Capital's country fans with a set at the inaugural "Country On The Common", a curious mixture of bands to be found on the UK Americana circuit, tribute acts and assorted Line and Barn dancing combos. Running a festival is a learning event each year and although Country On The Common deserves some credit for a lot that went right, no overflowing toilets, a genuine family friendly atmosphere, there were a few major hiccups.

#TEAMw21 joined Matt just as he had finished his opening tune, the skies were a little threatening to say the least and Matt joked that he had hoped it might rain as that would send people scurrying to his set to be under cover. Those were to prove to be fateful words. Fronting his impressive tight knit, three piece backing band Matt then launched into "When We Were Young" written in covid times, it certainly started the afternoon in style.

It should be mentioned that one of the flaws of the set up of the Travelling Barn was that when the band were playing you could hear them fine however any between song patter was heavily drowned out by sound bleeding from the main stage. That would prove to be the least of our issues, as there was a sudden order to put things on hold. That in itself was understandable, there was a threat of lightning, what was less so, was the announcement that we'd need to leave the site. So while they were worried enough to stop proceedings, they weren't worried enough about their patrons and wanted them to stand outside the site under trees during a thunderstorm when they were already reasonably safe under cover. If you were going to die from being hit by lightning, could you please do it off site seemed to be the underlying message.

After a shambolic ten or fifteen minutes, things resumed and full kudos to Matt for restarting with "When It Rains It Pours", it quickly washed away the bad taste of the previous few minutes. Slowing things down and opening with just Matt on guitar , was his excellent recent single, "Blue Ridge Road". Matt had to contend with a rare problem for a performer - low hanging bunting tickling him as he played - and then moved on to "My Kinda Cocktail", which skillfully shoehorns in as many Cocktail names as possible into the chorus. With this being a more festival set in front of fans who may be less familiar with his work, there were a few more covers than normal, but each was well chosen, Nate Smith's "Whiskey On You" being a case in point, which got the crowd singing along and the site once again bathed in sunshine.

The life of the travelling musician was covered in the rocking "On The Road" while "Fixed On You", co written with Gary Quinn, was a slower song with less volume. The covers continued with "Tennessee Whiskey" before Matt would once again pick up the pace, with a "a bit of fun" - "Make This Our Town". A final crowd rousing cover of "Chicken Fried" would set the scene for the pure Americana finale of "Outlaw" .

Despite the interruption it got the afternoon off to a cracking start for #TEAMw21.