It’s been something of a rollercoaster journey for Danielle Bradbery. After winning The Voice five years ago at just 16, she released her debut album to moderate success before taking some time out. Late last year Bradbery released her second record I Don’t Believe We’ve Met, which gained significant praise for her single Sway in particular. Yesterday she performed in front of the BBC Radio 2 stage audience at C2C Festival, showcasing songs from the album.
Bradbery opened her acoustic set with Can’t Stay Mad. It’s an uptempo poppy number which showed the richness of Bradbery’s vocal and brought out her soulful side. She then followed that with What Are We Doing, a song co-written with Thomas Rhett which had a dreamy tone and highlighted the sweetness in her voice.
One of the standout moments of the set jn my view was the ballad Human Diary. You could see the emotion of the song etched on Bradbery’s voice and it was clear that she was putting everything she had into it. The acoustic arrangement gave the song a lot more impact and I saw more than a few tears in the audience during her performance.
Bradbery finished her short set with the mellow, laid-back Sway, which had the crowd singing along, and Worth It. The latter is one of the strongest songs on her album, with its message of female empowerment, and Bradbery showed off the power in her voice on the chorus. It was nice to see a different side of her and one I would have liked more of during her performance.
Overall Bradbery delivered a solid set of country-pop songs and showed how far she’s come since being catapulted to fame. She looked confident and assured on stage and her vocals had a great quality about them. There were some moments that didn’t work for me – Hello Summer lacked a little weight – but it was a mature performance and one that showed she’s got great potential
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Set list: 1. Can’t Stay Mad 2. What Are We Doing 3. Hello Summer 4. Human Diary 5. Sway 6. Worth It Performance date: 10th March 2018
