(Utilita Arena, Newcastle)A rapturous crowd offer a hero’s welcome to the
Singer whose epic anthems deliver eeriness, intimacy and utter exhilaration
Former barman Sam Fender’s ascent from his first single in 2017 to topping the album chart with this year’s Seventeen Going Under is the stuff of dreams, but his first arena show in the region that made him is something else. The 27-year-old from North Shields walks on stage to seas of flags and phones and massed “woah-ohs”. There are times when it feels like the entire audience is singing every lyric with him. “I can’t believe this,” he splutters.
By singing about ordinary lives – from his mother’s fibromyalgia to children in
Gaza – in songs that are widescreen and epic yet intimate and emotional, the likable Geordie has truly struck a chord. Bruce Springsteen – whose song Dancing in the Dark Fender performs magically, with just a guitar – is the dominant influence, the driving sax recalling the E Street Band’s late Clarence Clemons, and the plangent guitars suggest the
police or Simple Minds. However, Fender’s concerns and his sublime, quivering Tyneside holler suggest that he is his own person, and a rare talent.
At Alexandra Palace,
London (Saturday 20 November), then touring.