RECAP: Frank Turner at Higher Ground, Burlington, VT- 9/23/15

I spent Wednesday night in a Vermont venue surrounded by Vermont liberals singing “There is No God, So Clap Your Hands Together.” But it wasn’t the wet dream of a conservative who forgot to prepare his latest hot take before going on screen at Fox News. It was a Frank Turner concert and we weren’t joining in a plot to destroy “religious freedom” but singing and clapping along to “Glory Hallejuah” from Turner’s 2011 album England Keep My Bones. And while I personally don’t believe in God and I think most aspects of all religions are a huge waste of time, I felt like I recharged my so-called soul this week. Not just by singing against the belief in God in some sort of bizzaro-world choir, but by listening to an entire set of uplifting music that held way more power than any spiritual ritual or text could hold over me.

Frank Turner and his backing band the Sleeping Souls kicked off the night with “Four Simple Words”, a great way to get the crowd to move since those four simple words explained in the chorus are “I want to dance”. The nearly-full club of people moved first and sang along next to “Josephine”; a song from Turner’s new album Positive Songs For Negative People with plenty of “whoa oh oh ohhhs”. They played another half dozen or so new songs including “Mittons”, “Demons” and “The Next Storm” which are really great to see live when you actually have listened to them first. Thankfully a lot of people in attendance were with me and can be heard singing along as well. They sound great on the album but the energy from the band the crowd made every song more positive and powerful.

Naturally there were songs throughout the set list that weren’t as rosey like personal favorite “Long Live The Queen”(death of a friend), “Polaroid Picture” (the impermanence of everything), or “Plain Sailing Weather” (just being a fuck up). But even the sad songs like “Song for Josh” about a friend that committed suicide (a song I regrettably dismissed at first listen because of its live quality recording) while personal and emotional, are still able to lift your spirit. Sometime you want to dance, but sometimes you want to be told that it’s okay to have fucked up or to be sad. Shit, what good is music if you can’t relate to it; especially by seeing it live and cathartically belting it out until your (Tape Deck) Heart is content.

Turner & the Sleeping Souls rocked hard during a pretty lengthy set that I’m fairly confident new and old fans alike would appreciate. Older songs like “I Am Disappeared, “The Road”, and “If I Ever Stray” were all well received, and he (solo) played some real old songs like “The Ballad of Me and My Friends” and “Smiling at Strangers on Trains” from his old band Million Dead. Still “Photosynthesis” wins for most dramatic crowd participation of the night. We were instructed(and surprisingly didn’t object) to sit down and when the line “And I won’t sit down and I won’t shut up. And most of all I won’t give up” played, jump up and down and go nuts. Aside from this also being my most strenuous activity for the day, it was nice to reaffirm that I wasn’t in fact shutting up or giving up. Despite being thirty and actually feeling a little soreness in my knee, I was still doing what I love. Going to a club show and rocking the fuck out.

Turner played a handful of songs off his second newest album Tape Deck Heart including its first single “Recovery” that he used to close out the set. In the encore he played “The Way I Tend to Be” from that same album after first opening with the aforementioned “Song for Josh”. He then wisely chose “Get Better” as his penultimate song, reaffirming for us that “We can get better because we’re not dead yet”. And just in case that didn’t save our souls they closed out the night with “I Still Believe”, because who’d have thought that after all, something as simple as rock and roll would save us all? Well, me. I would’ve have thought it. But sometimes its easy to forget. Thank you Frank Turner for reminding me.

Set List:

1. Four Simple Words
2. Josephine
3. I Am Disappeared
4. Losing Days
5. Love 40 Down
6. Glorious You
7. Peggy Sang The Blues
8. Demons
9. Polaroid Picture
10. Long Live the Queen
11. The Opening Act of Spring
12. Ballad of Me and My Friends (solo)
13. Smiling at Strangers on a Train (solo)
14. Once We Were Anarchists (solo)
15. Wessex Boy
16. Photosynthesis
17. Plain Sailing Weather
18. Glory Hallelujah
19. Mittons
20. If I Ever Stray
21. The Next Storm
22. The Road
23. Recovery

    Encore

24. Song for Josh
25. Way I Tend to Be
26. Get Better
27. I Still Believe

The Opener: Skinny Lister – I could have sworn I’ve seen this Irish folk punk band open for Flogging Molly and/or Dropkick Murphys a dozen times. But strange thing is I didn’t recognize them at all. Also strange, they are English, not Irish. They did sound a little like early Flogging Molly with maybe a little Talking Heads mixed in. Actually there were a few songs they sounded like exactly like The Pogues’ “If I Should Fall From Grace With God” They had both male and female vocals(always a plus for me) and they passed as a successful opening band since they got the crowd into it pretty damn well between clapping and passing around a large jug of beer. NEXT TIME I will remember them, and I’d actually be pretty excited if I saw their name at a show that I was going to.

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Bake

I'm nothing. Maybe less than nothing. I also write.

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