[ originally published 28/11/2016 ]
FRANK TURNER & THE SLEEPING SOULS
Great Hall, Cardiff University - 26 November 2016
Support: Felix Hagan & the Family, Esmé Patterson
This was TheMadster's birthday present. I bought her two tickets and asked who she would be taking with her. She seemed puzzled at the question. "You, of course," she replied. There can't be many 19-year-old girls who actually want to go to a gig with their dad. I should be proud and honoured. Except that she knows I'd probably end up driving us there, buying the drinks and shelling out 25-quid for a t-shirt!
Anyway, we watched American singer-songwriter Esmé Patterson from the back which wasn't the best idea because the sound was terrible back there. Perhaps unfair to judge her on that. We moved forward a bit for the next act, the exuberant Felix Hagan & the Family. Now, how can I describe this lot? Kind of like the Scissor Sisters with some glam rock mixed in. Cornier than a ripe cornfield. Camper than Carry on Camping. Really not my thing at all, and I suspect someone else wasn't taken by them - before the first song was over, a fire alarm went off! The sound cut out and the lights came on. After a five minute delay, they came back on and finished their set, but this was another first for me.
The one thing you can say about Frank Turner's audiences is they are LOUD! So loud, I couldn't actually hear him for the first two songs! His fans are rabid, singing every song word-for-word as loudly as they can. Now, I'm not blown away by much of his music and have grown a little weary of him of late. But the one thing I cannot deny is the guy knows how to work a crowd, and he makes sure he involves them at every opportunity. At tonight's show, he pitched one side of the audience against the other, every so often telling us which side was best. To decide it once and for all, he pulled a girl from the middle (or Switzerland, as he called it), and had her crowd surf to a guy in one corner, then across to a guy in the other corner, then back on stage where she had to judge which side was best. (It was our side, by the way.)
In the encore, Frank ordered a circle pit for a massive mosh (Madster went straight in!) and a Wall of Hugs, a nicer version of the death metal Wall of Death in which instead of charging at each other, we were instructed to hug a stranger. Yeah, a bit gimmicky and cringey for an anti-social old fart like me, but someone thought I was worth it as he grabbed me from behind, squeezed me and moved on to the next person.
By far the best track of the night for me was a solo acoustic rendition of Josephine, proving there's only so far you can go with shouty raucous anthems. Frank finished off by crowdsurfing himself while singing Five Simple Words. A heck of a showman, for sure. I'd like him to do something a bit different for his next album though.
TheMadster's verdict: "These hands have been blessed." Yep, she copped a feel of Frank's leg as he surfed the crowd. And: "I got stamped on a lot." She said this with a smile on her face, which is such a great thing for a dad!
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