It was to be a triumphant return to C2C for Erin Kinsey who last played the Town Hall Stage wken it was still inside the O2, as a teenager. She was full of promise then and 5 years later she remains an undeniable talent. The one question that sprang to mind though was why she was being so criminally under utilised, with just this one spot on the outer stages of the festival ahead of her arena debut on the Spotlight stage? In a nice touch she was accompanied by the same guitarist who joined her all those years earlier.
Her 30 minute slot was an absolute joy starting with "Better On Me", her observation on seeing an ex boyfriend wearing a t shirt that she used to borrow. It was a nice sassy put down to get things going. It came as a surprise when she announced she was releaseing her debut EP "40 East" if only because we have at least two of her earlier ones at #TEAMw21 towers! - "I Got You" saw Erin delightfully extend the word "you" to about 4 syllables and it was noticable that Erin's arrival on stage brought a continuous steady stream of fans into the Indigo.
Her next tune "All I Know" came with the introduction that she has no plans to release but loves singing it - it comes from her "Sam Hunt phase" -with a big old chorus and supporting backing vocals, this went down well. Perfectly at ease on the big stage there was a lovely intoduction to "Hurry", which had some lines about ther perils of driving such as the cop with his "radar gun" and was announced as her most country song. It was back to the forthcoming EP for "This Ain't Heaven" which came with a stong guitar line and saw Erin holding the mic for opening verse really concentrating on delivering the lyrics.
One of the more unlikely covers of the weekend came in the shape of Gnarls Barkley's "Crazy", which was completely reinvented into a slightly jazzy version - it gradually built in volume and the dual vocals on the chorus worked to great effect - in fact her guitarist Michael even got to sing a verse on his own!! Another song from the new EP was "(Hard To) Hate This Town" which was to prove another little gem, full of little autobiographical details that really gave a sense of where Erin was from. Closing with "Just Drive" one of the earlier singles from "40 East" it was great to reflect quite how far Erin has come in the intervening years, as she entertained us with this punchy pop single and ponder on quite how far she has yet to go.