LIVE REVIEW: Newton Faulkner @ Shepherd’s Bush

Newton Faulkner

O2 Shepherd’s Bush Empire, London

22nd October 2012

The crowd at the 02 is in raptures. This is a direct response to a question posed by Newton Faulkner in relation to what he should and will play next. Seconds previously he had asked, “Serious?” to a whisper-thin response. Now, he gages the importance of the other side to his music, “Or silly?” And this is how they’ve replied. The dreadlocked, stripy-sock wearing, tea-drinking one-band-man smiles, as he has done throughout his whole performance; it seems to be the story of the night.

Opening with the emotional and uplifting tracks, Pulling Teeth and To the Light, Newton’s third is one he admits to not having played in a while, People Should Smile More. It’s not because it isn’t a popular song, he says, it’s just that there’s a story to it. Only he doesn’t tell the story. Instead, as if succumbing to his own words, he smiles and tumbles boisterously through his three studio albums and various EPs over the two-hour play of his stage with nary a break or encore in sight. Early on, punters scream, “Marry me!” to which he replies, “That wasn’t a good proposal.” Later on, they scream “Play something cool!” to which he could have taken insult and ignored. Instead, he responds, “Did you just say, ‘play something cool’? It’s like we’re in a bar… play something cool!” It’s in good jest and taken with a grain of salt. Just like the moment he plays the wrong chord, stops mid-song, admits his fault, fiddles with a number of other chords trying to locate this rouge chord of his, finally lands on it and begins that section of his song again or the moment when he tickles his foot pedals to explain their functionality only to wind up pretending to be a giant and mock-stamping over a small, insignificant town using its sounds. Nothing is too serious for this man, who seems less like he’s entertaining a crowd and more like he’s entertaining himself.

Following on from a short clip of Full Fat, He Was A Professional is fast becoming a favourite and is a throwback to the sweet-yet-silly humour Faulkner displayed in his first two albums with She’s Got the Time and its serial interlude She’s Got the Time 2. Sadly, neither of these made their reprise tonight, though there was ample space for concert fave UFO and its signature hand dance, much to the punters’ delight.

This being Faulkner’s Write it on Your Skin tour, many of the songs on the bill are off his latest release. The epic Clouds was delivered with full gusto to a backdrop of swirls of mist and colour. And while an attempt at audience participation in the melody-driven Sugar and the Snow fell short (on the audiences’ part), it was Faulkner’s closer Pick Up Your Broken Heart that found the heartstrings and the rock-hard version of title track Write It On Your Skin that took the crowd and, despite this being an acoustic concert, sent them pounding the ground with their feet and jumping manically as if this were the metal concert of the year. And after Faulkner daringly spun the final lyrics of folk-popDream Catch Me into the rock genre, it’s not beyond this masterful craftsman to be able to turn his sound around any way he chooses. Tonight though, this is how he chose to play it. Silly, fun and uniquely Faulkner.

Originally published on 24 October 2013 for Kemptation Online – Review and photography by Stephanie Yip