Firstly, for the friends of mine that follow this blog and my twitter, this is not a proper blog post. Consider it an extended blog post to save you reading through numerous twitter posts.
Secondly, if you are one of those “unknown people” that have found your way here, I am not not a gig reviewer, nor do I passes the knowledge or lingo to be able to write one effectively.
This is a short rambling post, written whilst slightly inebriated, about the amazing Frank Turner gig I have just been to see down on my university campus.
“Beacause there is no such thing as rock stars,
there are just people that play music.
and some of them are just like us,
and some of them are dicks”
- lyrics of Try This At Home by Frank Turner
Frank Turner is definitely not one of these dicks…
For a bit of order, I’ll try and start off with the support acts (both of which have been commented on, more thoroughly then I will here on my Twitter), they were both extremely good. Crazy Arm, who were unheard of to me before to night, started off great and went from strength to strength. Chuck Ragan, the second support, was someone I had heard a lot about, yet had not heard his actual music, was incredible also, yet a see Crazy Arm as more in my genre of appeal then him.
Now this rambling post comes to the crescendo, Frank Turner. Simply amazing, I mean really I can’t find intellectual words to describe his time on stage. Just WOW. Despite the UEA LCR being a mid-sized venue, and the fact I was pretty far back, it seemed such an intimate gig, and that Frank Turner was playing to each individual crowd member on a face-to-face level. This was especially noticeable during “Dan’s Song”, where a random member of the audience was asked to come up on stage and perform the harmonica solo, which I must say, went down both well with the audience and Frank himself.
Unfortunately for me, I spent much of the gig either by myself or with people that did not know Frank Turner’s songs beyond his big hitters, yet the way he drew everyone in was exhilarating, to the extent that even a Frank turner sceptic I ran into was sold by the end of the gig, There was such a power, and almost hive-mind feeling, of the crowd that made this phenomenal.
The amazing quality I find in Frank Turner, is the lyrical quality of his songs. A proportion of which are about his views on being a musician that does not want to be idolised, which all though I can’t reciprocate with I immensely respect, his views on the world and politics, which fortunately I seem to have a lot of common ground with him on, and songs about his friends, theses are the songs that made me feel great at this gig. Sure, a lot of the bands I am into in a big way are politically based and this is why are appreciate his politically-minded songs a lot, but the best memories of this gig come from the songs that Frank Turner sings about his friends. Sure, they aren’t my friends he is singing so passionately about, but each one of them makes me think of times with people I know, or knew, and this gives me a sense of warmth that other favourite musicians of mine could not.
Well I won’t ramble on through this slightly drunken, poorly constructed blog post, which has been my first in over 6 months I believe, so I’ll draw it to a close with simply that I had an amazing time. Well worth the 2 day, solitary wait and having no-one to go with.
Half tempted to head up to the Roundhouse, Camden in 2 days to try and see him again. Hell of a way to bring my 2nd semester to an end.
