People watching at the Sam Fender show
Whether he realises it or not, Sam Fender’s music is a true celebration of the common man. On a grand scale, it’s there in the music; in the lyrics, he writes about growing up in the north east, about the local characters he loves and about the plagues faced by people up in historically neglected areas. It’s there in his status as North Shield’s own Bruce Springsteen as he borrows from the musical language The Boss made to write anthems for normal life. But it’s in the details, too, like the lighting. In the looming scale of London’s O2 Arena, a scattering of single light beams flash down onto the crowd, picking out strangers and giving them a spotlight. From my seat, I’m watching on.
Wunderhorse took to the stage first, staking their claim that one day in the not-too-distant future, it’ll be their name on the headline. Two girls to my right are making that clear as they get up on their feet at the early hour of 7:45pm and dance through each and every song. Holding hands, singing at each other, tracks like ‘Purple’ and ‘Leader Of The Pack’ are sure to be stadium fillers because they’re making it so, encouraging countless other people around them to get up and dance too simply because their enjoyment is so infectious, and I’m hit by it too.
In the tension as the lights go down and the venue roars with awaiting cheers as if sound could drag Sam Fender onto stage faster, I’m craning my neck, looking around, trying to grasp the sheer size of the place. All these ticket holders are reduced to dots, 20,000 dots that become an anonymous wall of sound yelling. I’m thinking about Fender’s pledge to Music Venue Trust: £1 per ticket. Looking around again, all the dots become a force of change.
As Fender roars into his second song, ‘Getting Started’, my eye is caught by two small fists raised behind me. A ten-year-old girl with huge pink ear protectors is smiling so hard that her whole face is glowing even redder under the red-toned lighting. For the entire show, Fender’s voice merges with a refrain of hers. Some people would hate that, would moan about concert etiquette and complain that they came here to hear the singer, not his fans. But I’d never mind having the musician matched with the excitement of a young kid overjoyed at her second-ever concert. Her first was Olivia Rodrigo, her mother tells me later when I turn to check she can see, willing to give up my view to make sure hers is perfect.
When ‘The Borders’, my favourite song, starts, I’m not watching Fender. I’m not even watching the stage. Instead, I’m following the beams of light down to whoever they’ve landed on. While most stand stoic as if they haven’t even noticed the spotlight, one night is spinning inside it. Her friends film her as she dances, seizing the moment to be the star and basking in it, as she should.
When I do look back at the stage, I’m still not really looking at Fender. Instead, I’m watching the musicians around him – who all come from the north east too – and brought on this journey with him. I’m laughing at Joe Atkinson, who, as well as keys and guitars, essentially takes on the role of hype man. My friend Bethan, who grew up with the band back up north, leans over and explains that, basically, he got given a mic back in their early days and has never had it taken away. I’m watching the newest member, too, as Brooke Bentham has elevated the entire experience with her stunning vocals and looks throughout the entire show, in a state of total awe as she watches the crowd from her podium while I watch her. I’m watching all of them as they break into a cover of ‘London Calling’, looking like any band of best mates, like any of the ones I grew up going to watch in scrappy diy spaces back in the north east, but now we’re all a long way from home, and they look just as amazed at the fact as I feel.
During ‘Spit Of You’, I’m watching Bethan. On the way in, she told me that The Riverside, one of Newcastle’s most essential independent venues, is shutting. It wasn’t just a cornerstone of the local scene now, but it was the venue that was Fender’s jumping-off point and one of the first places she ever saw him play when she just went along to support her mates. She tears up at several points in the show, half out of joy and pride and half out of mourning as Fender sings songs about his underfunded hometown, and the latest impact of that hangs heavy over us.
I get emotional, too. As we laugh about this London crowd putting on our accent during ‘Howden Aldi Death Queue’ or during the bridge for ‘Seventeen Going Under’, I’m clutching my Middlesbrough scarf and thinking about home. My relationship to the north east has always been a complex thing, as it is for so many creatives, articulated perfectly by Fender’s track ‘Leave Fast’, which he doesn’t play, sadly.
But tonight, I’m proud of my accent; I’m proud of my home. I’m proud of people like Bethan and me who moved away to do big things just as much as I’m proud of all the musicians who stayed and are still there working away to be the next Sam Fender. And I’m proud of the man himself, zoning in on him finally amidst all the thousands of arms in the air and stories of the night to find. From North Shields to a stadium, carrying countless other stories of people and places back home with him, Fender basks in his own deserving spotlight with so many people watching him watch them watch him.
