Frank Turner – Birmingham symphony hall. Show 2432
“Sunday nights are slow surrender, It never lasts and we never learn. We can still make this one to remember. It’s Sunday night and we’ve time to burn. Tomorrow morning can wait its turn.”
It’s a cold Sunday evening in Birmingham, it’s dark out and its December 1st, Christmas is looming and so are many deadlines. But the excitement of this unique Frank Turner experience I’m about to have means nothing can bring me down.
Touring the UK for the first time since the release of his 8th record, ‘No Mans Land’, Frank Turner is bringing us a very special, very new experience on this tour. Firstly by bringing the wonderful Emily Barker as his main support act for the tour. But then giving us not just one but two live sets this evening. Starting off with a lengthy 7 songs from No Mans Land performed solo before moving onto an unplugged set with The Sleeping Souls which really set a new level of what we can expect from Frank in his future performances. This coupled with the show being held in Birmingham Symphony Hall gave a truly unforgettable experience to the audience.
Frank started the evening with Jinny Binghams Ghost, a tale of a woman from Camden in the 1700s who owned an inn and was accused of witchery in her later life and how her ghost now resides in the Camden Underworld venue. From here Frank explained the stories of each song he picked from the album. Telling us the tale of the women involved with references to his podcast ‘Tales from No Mans Land’. The podcast explores the historical context and background of every person he writes about in the album, with some of the podcasts being recorded overseas talking to real historians involved with preserving the history of the women he sings about.
The Graveyard of the Outcast Dead came second with Frank describing it as a christmas song and how happy he was to finally play it in December, likening himself to an awful department store for playing it on tour from as early as September. Of course it’s probably not going to be a Christmas number one anytime soon with it’s morbid and dark themes, but as a live performance it went down incredibly well inside this incredible venue. The acoustics of a venue like this are like nothing Frank ever normally plays so hearing the sound of every song in its purest form was easily the highlight of the set. There were some downsides to this, only that I don’t think Frank’s sometimes shout-y stage presence worked for one or two of the songs in this atmosphere. But other than that the venue was perfect for this performance.
After paying homage to the inspiring Sister Rosetta and telling us how he gave Huda Sha’arawi’s granddaughter an open invitation to any of his shows to hear him play The Lioness, Frank ended the No Mans Land half of the show, telling us that what was to come with The Sleeping Souls was all the hits and more.
The second set started rather sincerely with a soft, spoken word version of The Ballad of Me and My Friends through to I Knew Prufrock Before He Got Famous still in that spoken word style but a bit more upbeat. After Prufrock, Frank began to explain that during this set he would be going in depth with some of the details of the songs he was going to play before playing them, and then moved onto Journey of the Magi explaining that it was a song he wrote when he started touring all the time and had to start choosing between his personal life and his touring life.
From this point on the show almost became like ‘An evening with Frank Turner’ with us learning deep details about his life and what led to him writing certain songs, I honestly left this gig feeling like Frank was an old friend I’d just had an in depth catch up with. Between playing and telling us the story of Isabel, his first long term girlfriend he then told us how after he ruined that relationship he found a path to redemption through the John Steinbeck novel ‘East of Eden’. After playing Redemption there was some lighthearted banter with the band about what style they should play Reasons Not to be an Idiot and this ended up with us getting an, as Frank described ‘Jazz Funk’ version of the song.
The main song that really stuck out for me this evening was the I Am Disappeared Songbook version which started in a full harmony from the band members, echoing throughout the depths of the huge venue and then turning into a solo song from Frank where you could really hear the emotion of the song coming out. Another favourite part of mine from this show was the explanation of One Foot Before the Other which I’d always thought had quite strange lyrics but I was very excited to learn that part of the inspiration behind this song were the thoughts of the late astronomer Carl Segan.
Keeping with the songbook trend Frank also gave us the acoustic version of The Way I Tend To Be which I’ve really grown to love because I always thought the original version started off far too loud, although the message from the song was one that I deeply appreciated. This set honestly had so many good songs and stories that I’m really struggling to keep this review short. From Frank playing There She Is on Matts piano to hearing one of my favourite songs Balthazar Impresario. The whole structure of this evening and the tour in general was such an engrossing experience. It felt like a whole set of the part usually halfway through a regular Frank Turner show where the band leave the stage and he plays a few carefully selected songs from his huge discography.
I’ve never been one for seated shows, and the thought of this show being fully seated was conflicting for me. Something about not being able to jump around for some of the more upbeat songs didn’t sit right for me. So you can imagine my pure excitement when the first few notes of Photosynthesis were struck and tens of people jumped from their seats and ran to the front row to sing and dance. Being lucky enough to be on the floor we knew we just had to get down there and join in ourselves. We got to the front very unsure what to do with ourselves but the set went on and people stayed up for the last songs of the set jumping around and putting our hands up for Recovery and I Still Believe before Frank ended the show by playing himself out to Be More Kind. A truly exceptional show from an exceptional musician.
Frank Turner will be back in the UK next March doing a huge UK solo tour which sees him spanning the whole south coast from Southend to Exeter and in between featuring a long awaited hometown show in Winchester. Then from the bottom of the country up through the midlands to places like Boston, Middlesbrough and York up into Scotland for a show at the iconic Barrowlands before finally finishing the tour at his favourite venue, Rock City in Nottingham. You can find the full list of shows below and tickets are on sale today, available at www.frank-turner.com
MARCH 03 – FOLKESTONE, Lea Cliffs Hall
MARCH 04 – BRIGHTON, Dome
MARCH 06 – CROYDON, The Recreational – Fairfield Halls
MARCH 07 – BOSTON, Glilderdrome
MARCH 08 – YORK, The Barbican
MARCH 10 – MIDDLESBOROUGH, The Middlesborough Empire
MARCH 11 – GLASGOW, Barrowlands
MARCH 13 – BATH, The Forum
MARCH 14 – AYLESBURY, Waterside Theatre
MARCH 15 – SOUTHEND, Cliffs Pavilion
MARCH 16 – NORWICH, Waterfront
MARCH 18 – WINCHESTER, Guildhall
MARCH 19 – EXETER, Lemongrove
MARCH 20 – LIVERPOOL, Olympia
MARCH 21 – NOTTINGHAM, Rock City