There are few stages the world over more iconic than the Ryman Auditorium, Nashville’s “Mother Church of Country Music.” London’s Royal Albert Hall is one of them. And with a capacity of 5,272, it’s more than twice the size. British fans of country music filled every one of those seats Friday night when, just 100 years into its existence, the Grand Ole Opry made its international debut, with a revue taped for an Oct. 4 broadcast on BBC 2, featuring Opry members Marty Stuart, Luke Combs, Ashley McBryde, Carley Pearce, and Darius Rucker, and kindred spirits from across the pond Breabach and Mumford & Sons.
Each section of the famed hall had its handful of guys wearing snappy button Western shirts and gals wearing loud cowboy hats, like goths sporting black mascara at a My Chemical Romance Halloween gig. In Nashville they’d be tourists. At home they were tired of waiting for this slice of Americana to reach their shores — 10 minutes before showtime the packed house was already singing along to a recording of “Take Me Home, Country Roads” blaring through the P.A. Moments later, Rucker rocketed out of the gate with a “Wagon Wheel” rendition worthy of a thousand Music City bachelorette parties.
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The event was a double first for Mumford & Sons. It was the indie-folk trio’s first time appearing on the Opry, which isn’t so surprising. It was also their first time playing Royal Albert Hall, which is astounding, considering they’re London locals. The inclusion of the Mumfords and Scottish step-dancing trad folkies Breabach kept the bill from being a full-on Nashville diaspora. With bucket-list humility, frontman Marcus Mumford went acoustic, harmonizing on a single shared microphone at the center of the hallowed Opry circle (imported from Nashville) with bandmates Ted Dwane and Ben Lovett on their own fan-favorite “Timshel,” making it through the Sign No More deep cut without any country purists in the crowd heckling “Judas!” Instead, they responded to the band’s signature song “I Will Wait” with the fervor of 100,000 Glastonbury punters.
In classic Opry reverence, this was a night of signature songs, in many cases played, not by, but in deference to the artists that made them Opry standards. Pearce repped Dolly Parton with a knockout “9 to 5.” Rucker regaled with what even he bantered was an obligatory run through “Folsom Prison Blues.” Joined by English Americana up-and-comers the Wandering Hearts, Marty Stuart bridged the gap between the U.S. and the U.K. with a delicate “Wild Horses” rendition that fit the moment like a glove on a hand on a mandolin, after namedropping a friend named Keith and calling the Rolling Stones “one of the best country bands that’s ever been.” That would’ve been the night’s standout, were it not for Ashley McBryde conjuring Patsy Cline with a show-stealing performance of “Sweet Dreams” that hit like a shut-eye drift to an eternal paradise.
Dueting with Luke Combs, Mumford killed with the boomers in attendance, when joking he’d originally wanted to tackle Shania Twain’s “Man! I Feel Like a Woman!”, which would’ve been quiet the vibe shift following Combs’ crooning his chart-topping cover of Tracy Chapman’s “Fast Car” like it was his first time instead of his hundredth. The pair instead settled on a tear-in-beer faithful “Always on My Mind” (in tribute to Willie Nelson).
To be sure, the appearing artists got the crowd stomping, clapping, and belting along to modern standards of their own, like Rucker eliciting Nineties nostalgia feels with his Hootie and the Blowfish hit “Hold My Hand,” or Pearce tapping Combs for an assist on their co-written “I Hope You’re Happy Now.” McBryde garnered a standing ovation that brought her to tears with a performance of “Girl Goin’ Nowhere” that made the case for why she’s the embodiment of country music past, present, and (God willing) future.
But it was Combs who transformed the Hall from A Night at the Opry Abroad to what felt like a modern American country music concert. It was a raucous (but still proper polite) stadium-sized celebration of trucks, shitty beer, refrigerator doors, and broken hearts — American pastimes not particularly germane to the Land of Rose — that highlighted the fine line between Appalachian college dropout and global everyman superstar.
The sight of the night’s character cast rejoining the stage for the traditional finale of the Carter Family’s “Will the Circle Be Unbroken (By and By)” was without a doubt surreal on a stage that wasn’t Nashville’s Ryman or Grand Ole Opry House, but it felt natural and familial nonetheless. The Grand Ole Opry, an institution steeped in old traditions, may have just found a new one, as the crowd at Albert Hall probably won’t have the patience to wait another year for this to happen again, let alone another 100 years.
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