Probably the UK’s most prolific songwriter, Frank Turner exists in 2 modes – recording and touring. This month sees Frank bringing The Sleeping Souls to various venues around the country in promotion of last year’s Undeafeted album, although in Frank’s case he probably records an album to promote a tour…
Those who reside on the south coast will probably be familiar with the frankly dogshit sound in Southampton Guildhall, but nonetheless the packed in audience laps it all up from start to finish and well they should.
With no intro tape, the house lights go down and Mr Turner leads the band on the stage, creating a crescendo with their instruments before the man himself gives a quick encouragement for the crowd to immediately start opening up a circle pit and launches straight into No Thank You for the Music and Girl in the Record Shop from the aforementioned album and to be fair there is very little let up from there.
Gaps between songs are relatively infrequent, Frank instead opting to often chain 3 songs together to keep the vibe going and what a vibe it is. Frank Turner knows his audience and that’s one of the things that sells so many tickets – he knows what the people want and the people know what they’re going to get, the setlists may vary but they are always full of great tracks and a lot of energy.
After his opening salvo Frank addresses the crowd to announce it’s his 24th headliner show in the city and that there are only 2 rules – don’t be a dickhead and sing if you know the words and that’s exactly what everyone does. There’s no concern that someone may be enjoying themselves a little too much, no worries that someone might come a bit too close and cause a problem just hundreds of smiley people dancing, bouncing and singing the night away.
Guitarist Ben Lloyd pulls out an electric mandolin signalling crowd pleaser Photosynthesis, which still includes Frank’s Slipknot ripoff of getting everyone to sit down and jump (the fuck) up on his signal. This was cool when “The Nine” started doing it 15 years ago, but having seen everyone and their drum tech do it since repeatedly it’s very old hat now.
The Sleeping Souls have done a fantastic job the last decade or so being both entertaining and energetic on stage, whilst never overshadowing the man in the middle and it’s that perfect complementation on both parties that is why the partnership has worked as long as it has and the only question remaining is still how does Tarrant Anderson play the bass like that?
Before Frank takes a solo spot and gives the other lads a breather we get a rendition of Ceasefire (a song about The Verve that even more bizarrely sounds a bit like Echo & The Bunnymen) and a big singalong to Wessex Boy, at which point it’s hard not to notice that the man really enjoys getting the audience to clap along as it’s been instructed on just about every other song, but again, this is because Frank is nothing short of a performer who lives and breathes for live shows and interacting with an audience and here he goes one on one with it performing a rare outing for This Town Ain’t Big Enough for the One of Me, which he explains had been requested, but not played in so long he had to Google his own lyrics…. In between knocking out both Be More Kind and The Ballad of Me and My Friends before bringing the band back Frank does the honourable thing of ensuring all the road crew and venue staff get their moment of appreciation and announces that £1 of all the tickets sold on this tour will be going to a charity that supports grassroots venues resulting in a huge cheer.
Xit obvious what the song was for a minute, but no one could fault an ending of Try This at Home and I Still Believe.
Returning for the encore it’s a miracle anyone under the roof has any energy left, but somehow Frank squeezes out the last of everyone, breaking down Polaroid Picture to insist the entire audience all pogo when the song comes back in, clinching this deal by telling people who think they might too cool to do so that if they were at this show “you’re probably not that fucking cool” and sure enough literally the entire Guildhall was awash of bouncing bodies before the end was nigh and (Skipping the slow piano part that starts the song) Frank Turner and The Sleeping Souls rip into a riproaring performance of 4 Simple Words and exit the building knowing full well, they’ve bloody done it again.
9/10
For further information on Frank Turner please head here
