Frank Turner
London Alexandra Palace
Fervid folk meets powerhouse punk.
★ “Welcome to show number three thousand!” cries Frank Turner, arms aloft, as his habit of tallying every gig over his 21 solo years lands him in a grand hall of 10,000 celebratory Frankophiles. All that road-wear certainly hasn’t withered him. After opening with a solo The Ballad Of Me And My Friends – his cult-making anthem for heroic pay-to-play songwriters everywhere – he and his Sleeping Souls band rip into a frenzied first hour of rafter-buckling folk rock (The Next Storm, self-critical sensation Plain Sailing Weather) and powerhouse punk jigs (Try This At Home, 1933) with the unrelenting fervour of a heavily inked Montoya Por Favor. Things ease up only when Turner recalls being ostracised from the local punk scene as a teenager because of his background (cue an emotional Somewhere Inbetween), dedicates a solo Long Live The Queen to a fan who lost her battle with cancer, and explains the Trump-neutering intent of a moving Be More Kind that “didn’t have the impact I was hoping for”.