Where do you go after the biggest highs of your career? Small(ish) venues and new stuff, naturally.
Earlier this year, Frank Turner truly crashed into the pop/rock bigtime. Headline concerts at caverns like the O2 Arena in London and the Phones 4 U Arena in Manchester, bill-topping slots at several small regional festivals, even a win on Celebrity Mastermind - this has a huge year for the singer.
It could have been easy after that to take some time off, compose some new ditties and then head to the studios. But instead, a new material road-test has been commissioned, making stop overs in a wide variety of regional towns and cities.
This is Turner's first performance in Cambridge for 3 years - the last of which being at a church in 2011 - and the locals are in the mood for a good time from the off. They dance to opening duo Try This At Home and If Ever I Stray as if to make up for last time, while Turner belts his couplets from the stage.
In truth, the opening numbers are slightly hindered by sonic problems which will be an issue throughout the evening, but they get the standing crowd moshing and what is audible is certainly effective at getting the crowd off and running.
Four songs in comes our first gasp at new material, in the form of the sprightly uptempo Out of Breath - a song that could promise to be a big tune when the expected new record lands next year. Certainly, its the strongest of the five new ones premiered here.
Naturally, its the hits that the crowd are in town for. The Road and Reasons Not To Be An Idiot inspiring early dancing, while a combination of I Am Disappeared and The Way I Tend To Be inspires the biggest singalong of the opening of the concert.
In amongst this is a new track called Glorious You, which is one of many that is a work in progress, and is one of two to receive full live debuts at this show. The other full debutant is the first of Turner's 3 song acoustic set, and is entitled Silent Key, which is a tribute to a schoolteacher that was killed in the Challenger Space Shuttle disaster in 1986.
The other acoustics are social media request - one of which from a couple in the audience who played it at their wedding - before some big guns. Wessex Boy inspires some singing to its gentile groove, before Photosynthesis gets the biggest sing-a-long of the entire night and even some joining in from a largely sedate balcony.
As the evening progresses, the sonic problems are beginning to come worse, with both electric and bass guitars having audio problems. This is biggest on the new song Josephine, which despite having the bones of a good track, is heavily reliant on a bass riff that the speakers don't seem to broadcast.
Not that the crowd are determined to let that stop them a good time. Recovery sees the band's sound technician lead the crowd through frenzied jumping, before Long Live the Queen - despite guitarist Ben Lloyd's lead riff being mute and Frank Turner's guitar stopping working - inspires a fine singalong to close the main set.
Naturally, the first end is not the end, and the band duly returned for another quartet of tunes. An acoustic song entitled The Angel Islington - which Turner described as a sequel to the downbeat Broken Piano on Tape Deck Heart - opens up the encore nicely.
A final trio closes off, culminating in a rampant singalong for I Still Believe and exhausted but delightful dancing for Four Simple Words to pull the certain down on Turner's 1,613th concert.
It wasn't the best show of Turner's career, with poor acoustics hindering the night's quality. But the new material is certainly hinting at promise to come, with recording expected of the new album after the band's tour is wrapped up in Cambridge's university rivals Oxford at the end of the month.
Alongside that, the crowd were loving all the immaculately crafted old stuff that has elevated Turner into bigger rooms than this one, and helped the enjoyment of the show beyond the limited sonic scape.
In all, it was a success, and more with any luck, further decent shows will follow when he returns with his new record next year.
3.5/5
Opening for Turner and his band were Minnesota duo Koo Koo Kanga Roo, who had previously opened for Turner in the United States. The duo are certainly different, having been described as "Beastie Boys meets Sesame Street", and providing merrily nonsensical tunes that began to work a charm on the Cambridge crowd as the evening progressed.
Things then progressed even more when the duo went into the crowd, creating a pit in the middle of the venue while they danced, and even ending the show by bringing out a kid's parachute over the crowd during the final tune. Its certainly a world away from conventional acts of almost every genre, but it worked in getting the crowd pumped up for the concert.
No comments:
Post a Comment