Country Music singer/songwriter Cam did something recently that many songwriters in Nashville dream of: she played at The Bluebird Cafe for the first time.
“It’s a big part of this industry. It’s a big part of this world I’m in, and you kind of enshrine it in your mind as like the place that you want to end up, and as a writer, it feels really nice to actually be invited here to sit and sing,” Cam said on Saturday night prior to playing her set alongside Hunter Hayes in a show benefiting Alive Hospice. “It’s an institution, and I’m the newcomer.”
Cam went to a show at the Bluebird Cafe prior to moving to Nashville and visited one time after moving to Nashville, but she has never sang a set at the Bluebird. She did joke during the show that during one of her prior visits, she was able to go up to the microphone and sing happy birthday to one of her friends.
To mark Saturday night’s occasion, Cam opened her set with a song called “No One Gets to Heaven (If Anybody Else is Left Behind)” written by Tom Kimmel and Klaus Caprani.
Cam explained to the crowd that she saw Kimmel perform the song at one of her visits to the Bluebird previously, and she thought it fit to play that song before getting to her own material that she had written.
The show was filled with exchanged stories and admiration between Cam and Hayes, who alternated songs through the end of the show.
“I really admire him,” Cam said of Hayes prior to the show. “I think he’s such a talented person that it’s going to be really nice to be so intimate and close to someone who’s such a great musician.”
Hayes reciprocated the admiration prior to the show, and could be seen singing along to Cam’s songs during the set.
"To get to hear her voice in that room is going to be magic. I’m so stoked about it!” Hayes said, adding that he loved every song on Cam’s record “Untamed” and thought it was a great album.
Beyond playing with Hayes, Cam said playing in the Bluebird’s atmosphere was something special in itself.
“I love these kinds of shows,” Cam explained. "To be able to see people's faces and connect with them personally because that’s why you write these songs, because you have something vulnerable that you want to show and you want to see that they're getting it, and that’s what makes it the most special, when you can see people’s faces.”
It was announced a few days before the show at the Bluebird that Cam would be playing Bonnaroo, one of the south’s largest music festivals.
"I’ve never been to Bonnaroo,” Cam said following the news. “Honestly, those kind of festivals seem like a whole other world.”
Being from California, Cam said she’d been able to go to Stagecoach and other similar festivals, but Bonnaroo has been a different opportunity.
“Just so many people in that lineup, and it’s all different types of genres, too, so you feel extra cool being included,” Cam said of being added to the lineup. “It feels like it’s going to be an epic kind of moment, and the whole band, everyone’s kind of peeing themselves that this is what we get to do.”
Bonnaroo has been set to take place in Manchester from June 8 through 11. Tickets have already gone on sale. Learn more about Bonnaroo by clicking here.
