Frank Turner

Frank Turner

Wednesday 24^th March 2010

Roundhouse, Camden

5 Stars

Frank Turner surprises me. His recorded work is remarkably unremarkable, a kind of folk-rock, singer-songwriter mash-up that leaves a lot to be desired. Yet despite this, and the fact I did not know a single one of his songs prior to the show, Frank Turner quite simply blew me away.

Maybe it was the passion with which Turner performed – the themes of his songs remind me of Oscar Wilde, focused on ideas of enjoying life to the fullest (‘Yes I’m definitely going to hell, but I’ll have all the best stories to tell’), and come from the heart. Maybe it was the crowd’s response to his songs – the fans knew every word off by heart; the audience jumped, pumped their fists, and even moshed the evening away.

But, for me the most fascinating thing about ‘the real Frank Turner’ is how easy it is to relate to him. Whether it be Frank asking his good friend Dan to accompany him on stage while he sang a song written about the guy, or to tell us the story behind the song ‘Long Live the Queen’, about a friend who died and told him (as the chorus goes) ‘You’ll live to dance another day, it’s just now you have to dance for the two of us’ we warm to Turner for his obvious love for his friends, and we sing along with his lyrics for their obvious love of life. Some artists are interested in turning themselves into stars. Turner on the other hand scoffs at this behavior, and is all the more charming because of it. As his lyrics go ‘there's no such thing as rock stars, there's just people who play music, and some of them are just like us, and some of them are dicks’.