The hugely talented singer-songwriter Newton Faulkner entertained a sell-out crowd on Sunday night in front of many adoring fans.
Yes, Newton Faulkner is back and as good as he has ever been! He may no longer have the dreadlocks, but that was all that was missing from his performance at he played songs taken from all five studio albums to mark his success over the last ten years. The singer is back on tour to celebrate the release of his fifth studio album; Human Love, which came out last Friday (Nov 20th). This album marks a new direction for his music, including tracks specifically written to be performed live, including lots of drums, which has not been the case on previous live tours. Newton was supported by the band Victoria, an indie-pop group of 5 guys from London who gave a very good, well-rehearsed performance.
Newton showcased his amazing ability as a guitarist right from the beginning, opening the show with Intro, leading into I Need Something, both taken from his first album, Hand Built By Robots. He then performed one of my favourite tracks, Clouds, taken from his third album, Write It On Your Skin. This song provided the perfect opportunity to get the crowd involved by splitting them into three groups to accompany him for the outro of the track. He was pleased to hear that we were all in fine voice!
The next series of tracks performed were new releases, beginning with what is to be his next single, Get Free, a cover of the Major Lazer song written in 2012. The music video, which accompanies the track, caused quite the stir on social media as it depicted him cutting off his locks. After asking the crowd what they thought of the video, one shouted, “I cried”, but Newton assured her that it was not his intention, just a change to his appearance and music, which fittingly led into his next new track, Step in the Right Direction.
The fans were delighted to hear him perform Teardrop, a cover of the track by Massive Attack, which appeared on his debut album. One track which particularly got the crowd up dancing and singing along was Brick by Brick, an upbeat number from album three and the dancing continued as he performed the new tracks, Stay and Take and Far to Fall. Newton had bought many guitars with him on tour it seemed, with one of his favourites being an electric one, which he promised the crowd he would not get too carried away with as he performed various riffs during the guitar solo in the popular track People Should Smile More.
Newton revealed that the track mentioned above was written when he and his brother Toby “were outside public toilets, as a lot of songs are, like this one…”, where he proceeded to play the intro to his interlude track She’s Got the Time, a track which has renditions featured on both the first and second albums. He admitted that he wasn’t going to perform that track but asked the crowd whether they would like to hear it anyway. Toby claimed to have forgotten the words, but much to Newton’s amusement he did in fact not only know the words, but remembered all the harmonies as well!
Many of you will remember Newton Faulkner for his biggest hit, Dream Catch Me, which reached the number 7 in the UK’s singles chart in 2007. His performance of this track sounded even better live and was a fitting way to close this part of the show. I say this part, because usually at this point he would go off for a break, before returning for an encore. Yet, as several performers have noticed at this venue in the past, there is in fact nowhere to go, so he stayed on stage, closing the show with two more new tracks and a finale medley, which featured Losing Ground from the album Studio Zoo, Gone in the Morning from album one and finally Write it on Your Skin!
After the show Newton signed autographs and chatted with fans. It was a pleasure meeting him and an even bigger pleasure seeing him perform live!
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