The black and white stripes of Newcastle United shirts peppered the 45,000-strong crowd at Finsbury Park, although those wearing them weren’t there for a football match. In appropriately rowdy fashion, northern pride had descended on London with the colours of Sam Fender’s local team adorning the venue (the musician was born and raised in North Shields, just miles from Newcastle).
Fender kicked off his riotous set with “Will We Talk?” from his 2019 album Hypersonic Missiles before smashing confidently through “Getting Started” from 2021’s Seventeen Going Under and “Dead Boys” from a 2018 EP. He and bandmates Dean Thompson, Tom Ungerer, Joe Atkinson, Drew Michael and Johnny Davis played with an exuberance that felt appropriate for their biggest show yet. Fender’s voice, though rough and rasping, rang through with slick and soulful purpose.
After making his Glastonbury debut last month, this was another step up, but the 28-year-old is determined to stay grounded. He turned his Brit Awards into beer pumps at his local pub and — in tribute to the landlord, who passed away earlier this year — he named this event’s second stage the John O’Keefe Low Lights Stage.
Posters advertising the gig portrayed Boris Johnson as a cartoon hog roasting over an open fire. Fender has been outspoken in the past about his hatred of the Tories. This sentiment came through in “Aye”, as he sang, “I don’t have time for the very few/They never had time for me and you.”
Among the highlights was the live debut of “Alright”, which he had shared on social media the night before, Fender commenting that it is “about growing up and the theme of cheating death”. Gentler than many of Fender’s best-known songs, “Alright” is laced with a loneliness that may be born of lockdowns, but it is also imbued with hope and resolution: “We’re alright, we’re alright, it’s time to put the world to rights.”
As the sun set over Finsbury Park, Fender closed the show with two powerhouse numbers, “Seventeen Going Under” and “Hypersonic Missiles” in the encore, introspection giving way to joyful defiance. Fender is shooting for the heavens.
★★★★★
Stay connected with us on social media platform for instant update click here to join our Twitter, & Facebook
We are now on Telegram. Click here to join our channel (@TechiUpdate) and stay updated with the latest Technology headlines.
For all the latest Art-Culture News Click Here
