I had only first heard a few of Frank Turner’s songs a few months ago, but over the past few months, I found myself listening to him with increasing frequency. Less than a week before the show, I finally dinged him as an artist who I should keep an eye out for, looked up his upcoming concert schedule, and found that he was coming to the Vic Theatre very soon. I picked up a ticket and listened to his albums even more so I knew what to expect at the show. His show at the Vic Theatre, his largest ever in Chicago, started very early, about 10 minutes after 8pm. I arrived only about 20 minutes prior, but was still able to find a good spot on the left side, a step up from the pit area but relatively close to the stage. This kept me well out of reach of any moshing, which kicked up for perhaps a quarter to a third of the songs.
Frank, a somewhat wiry Englishman, took the stage joined by his band, the Sleeping Souls, including Ben Lloyd on the electric guitar and electric mandolin (the latter of which I’m not sure that I’ve seen before), Tarrant Anderson on bass, Matt Nasir on keyboards, and Nigel Powell on drums. Normally Frank plays the acoustic guitar, but he would forgo playing an instrument on this tour. He clarified that it “wasn’t a Michael Bolton” thing, but rather due to a back injury earlier in the year. The compromise with his doctor, who wanted him to cancel the tour, involved getting a replacement guitarist and wearing a back brace. He didn’t mention this situation until a few songs into the set prior to “Losing Days,” more or less a song about getting old, with lines like “Oh my broken battered body, in the days when I was younger, used to fix itself quick sharp, after every slip and stumble.” His acoustic guitar replacement was Dan Allen of Ducking Punches, who Frank teased about being Irish in a band full of Englishmen, suspecting that he would kill them all in their sleep; he also apologized for all those centuries of oppression. While his backing band was great, they were missing some of the instrumentation from his studio albums, including a few well utilized horns segments. Overall the setlist was great, though he didn’t play “English Curse” more of a spoken/sang poem about than a song, but one I thought would be cool to hear.
Frank Turner got his start in the punk scene with the band Million Dead. After the band’s break up, he began a solo career, but transitioned his music to more of a folk influenced sound. His albums are a little more folky than his live shows, which still retain the folky lyrics and acoustic guitar, but really turn up the volume. Kind of folk music set to a punk tempo. The show was very punk influenced as well in terms of its focus on incorporating the audience into the show, becoming friends, and having a cathartically good time, with Frank frequently requesting audience participation, like singing or clapping along. At one point, he asked us to kick it up a notch by jumping and clapping at the same time. The audience, which was heavily slanted to the male end of the spectrum, was very enthusiastic and dedicated. The hyped guys in the front section seemed to yell every word of every song back to him, but even attendees further back sang along quite well. At one point, he asked who’s first time seeing him perform. Not a whole lot of hands were in the air. He welcomed us newbies to the family, then clarified, “That makes it sound like a cult; I swear it’s not a cult.”
One of the other things about Frank Turner’s music that really captured me is the quality and tone of his voice. It’s powerful, infused with emotion, carries his thick English accent, and perfectly straddles the line between singing and screaming without ever crossing over to just noise. With all that he still clearly annunciates his lyrics, which are often story based or dripping with imagery, as per his folk influenced side. At the beginning of the show, I thought his voice sounded a little weak compared to the album. At first I thought that it was either because he couldn’t recreate the vocal advantages of the studio or that night after night of touring was just catching up with him. However, his voice actually noticeably improved within a few songs, so perhaps he just needed a bit more of a warm up.
I often comment that band frontmen are clever and personable, but Frank was unusually so. He truly did make me feel like we were all just friends hanging out at a party for an evening. He had lots of clever commentary to provide and witty banter with his band mates. This included one off comments, like in the moments before he was able to start a piano-accompanied version of “The Ballad of Me and My Friends” he quipped, “I feel like I should be wearing a cocktail dress, hell, I’m already wearing a corset,” referring to his back brace. He’s also a bit of a fact and tour statistics geek, a man after my own heart. He noted that it was his 1483rd show (full list available on his website) and took a few minutes to tell us facts that he learned about Chicago including that jazz, the zipper, and soap operas were all invented in Chicago. As I also frequently do, he clarified that he read it on the internet so it must be true. He would also get into little point of reference tangents throughout the show with the himself or band mates, then call it off with a “what are we doing, no one out there cares; we can discuss this after the show.”
Disregarding doctor’s orders, Frank finally picked up his guitar to play a single solo song at the beginning of the encore. During this tour, he had been playing locally relevant covers in each city he visited, for example, Tom Petty’s “American Girl” during a show in Florida. For Chicago, he chose a song by the band Shellac, one of Steve Albini’s (who I only knew from his sound engineering work with Nirvana and others) bands, called “Prayer to God.” I had never heard the song before, but what a gloriously disturbing and demented, yet thoroughly entertaining song. Basically, it’s the vocalization of a man praying to god to kill his ex-girlfriend (painlessly) and her new lover (painfully). He ended with a couple other songs, the last one being “Four Simple Words,” which refers to the specific words “I want to dance.” The crowd kicked it up a notch and I ran down into the pit to bounce around a little before the end of the show.
Setlist:
I Still Believe
Try This at Home
If Ever I Stray
Losing Days
Plain Sailing Weather
Glory Hallelujah
Reasons Not to Be an Idiot
The Way I Tend to Be
Wessex Boy
The Ballad of Me and My Friends (Piano Version)
Tell Tale Signs
The Road
I Am Disappeared
Peggy Sang the Blues
I Knew Prufrock Before He Got Famous
One Foot Before the Other
Long Live the Queen
Recovery
Broken Piano
Encore:
Prayer to God (Shellac cover)
Photosynthesis
Four Simple Words
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