Sophia Scott is not prepared for a Birmingham December. You can hardly blame her. She’s come straight from Nashville to play The Show, and stepping out of that comforting Tennessee climate into Digbeth’s icy night air is a shock to the system. She jokes about it, wrapped up in a furry throw to fight the chill, turning it into part of the performance and somehow making this industrial room feel like home.
She opens with “Boots, Jeans, & Jesus” and “Smoke ’Em If You Got ’Em,” delivered in a stripped-down setup with just a guitarist, which only sharpens the focus on that voice of hers—frankly, she could sing the phone book and make it sound filthy.
She’s also road-testing brand new material tonight. The one she “only wrote a couple of weeks ago,” “Cocaine In My Cabernet,” is laced with heartbreak, storytelling, and the sort of melodic instinct that marks her out as a natural. It fits neatly alongside “Wildflowers,” which underlines the emotional honesty running through everything she does.
Another new one, “Say You Love Me,” digs into the ache left behind by people who don’t do the things they say they will. Matters of the heart seem to sit right at the centre of Scott’s world.
She plays “Lifeboat,” the title track of her new EP, before closing with “Buy A Round,” which she cheerfully calls her party song. It becomes a brilliant, ragged, communal moment. When it comes to trouble, Sophia Scott knows where to find it—and how to turn it into something beautiful. She is a seriously gifted singer-songwriter in a room that suits her perfectly.
Drew Baldridge appears with his band and instantly changes the temperature. He opens with “Country Boy In Me,” baseball cap, denim shirt, jeans—the full small-town American silhouette. And that’s the point. It’s not a costume. It is who he is, and that authenticity is why it works.
He talks with real humility about his appearance earlier in the year at C2C, and you sense how much it still means to him to be here, a long way from the 600-person Illinois town he grew up in. His 90s country medley—Travis Tritt’s “I Like It, I Love It,” Toby Keith’s “Should’ve Been a Cowboy,” plus a dash of “Boot Scootin’ Boogie”—genuinely surprises him when the Birmingham crowd sings every word.
But it’s his own songs that make this special. “Honkytonk Town” turns Mama Roux’s into exactly that—an American-flavoured, good-time dive bar for three glorious minutes. “Deserve Her,” which he proudly calls the sequel to his big hit, carries real weight. “Tough People” lays out everyday struggles with tenderness rather than cliché. And “Call Me If You Get One,” about hunting, family, and heritage, proves how deeply he connects with the place he comes from.
There’s a cracking moment when he covers Garth Brooks’ “Friends in Low Places,” bringing Sophia Scott back out to duet. Then comes “Can She Have This Dance,” a song that could be sappy in the wrong hands but lands with total sincerity here.
Baldridge leaves the stage only to reappear on the balcony right next to where I’m sitting, performing an intimate acoustic section. One of those songs—“Burnt Toast”—is a request, and he’s genuinely taken aback. It’s a lovely, off-the-cuff moment.
“Legacy” follows, still with him up on the balcony while the band remains onstage. Singing about his grandfather, the honesty is written clean across his face. It’s the emotional core of the night.
Then comes “Honky Butts,” which he playfully smashes together with “Baby Got Back,” a moment that gets the whole room laughing and cheering.
His new single “Rebel” arrives with a message that hits home, and it’s here I find myself thinking—as I often do—that there really are more good people than bad in this world. You just don’t hear about them as much.
Later, he opens up about his own journey: how he felt country had given up on him, how the industry had spat him out. So he decided to take on the world on his own. Tonight feels like proof that it was the right call.
He ends with “Somebody’s Daughter,” the song that changed his life and saw him become one of the first independent artists to score a number one back home. It’s the perfect full-circle moment.
Before he leaves, he tells us this is his first ever UK headline show, and one he’ll never forget. He won’t—and he shouldn’t—because the trajectory he’s on is obvious to anyone watching. Authenticity, heart, and craft have a habit of rising.
Tonight, Drew Baldridge proved he’s heading straight for the top.
