The Big Stage

Newton Faulkner Live in Exeter

After the multi platinum album ‘Hand Built by Robots’ Newton Faulkner takes to the road.  Tonight at Exeter is the opening night of his UK Tour.  Tonight was a complete sell out and if you were lucky enough to get a ticket you would have seen first hand why this guy is the next biggest thing is British music.

The Great Hall is situated on Exeter University Campus under the shadow of the Northcott Theatre,  it is one of these wonderful venues where regardless of how full it is it is almost impossible to get a bad view.

The stage set in itself was very basic with a lot of focus on atmospheric lighting, which personally I do like a lot as all the emphasis was on the music.  The support for tonight show came from Angus and Julia Stone a wonderfully talented brother and sister, which was the perfect opening act.  There music has very strong folk routes typically two acoustic guitarist with Julia playing blistering solos on the trumpet and harmonica.  Very earthy and their vocals together was very reminiscent of Ricky Ross & Loraine Macintosh of Deacon Blue.  The harmonies were haunting and their brief set elevated nicely.  At the bottom of this review there is the link for their myspace site.

Newton Faulkner took to the stage to an absolute thunderous reception, armed with just his acoustic guitar.  He started the show with a brief instrumental which was the opening track of the album.  Right from the offset Newton was using his acoustic guitar for percussion which was met by a rapturous applause.  It was amazing to watch a solo singer captivate an audience, mesmerised and hypnotic, something I have only witnessed when I saw Bob Dylan, yet the strength of the songs and how cleverly thought out the concert was equally jaw dropping as it was inspiring.  You could hear murmurs of people stood next to you just saying ‘how the hell does he do that’.  Most of the songs the crowd were singing them word for word, which for a relatively new artist speaks volumes of just how big this gentleman is going to be.  The new album was played in its entirety and 80% acoustically.  ‘I Need Something’ & ‘ Dream Catch Me’ were some of the highlights along with ‘Teardrop’ which is a cult classic from the masters of trip hop Massive Attack.  Occasionally he would bring on a bass player and a drummer just to lift some songs.

Along with captivating the audience, Newton injected a lot of humour, not so much jokes just satires and irony about life, music and what inspired him to do what he does so well.  He played a funny rendition of ‘no-limits’ which was by Dutch techno outfit 2-unlimited along with the Dead or Alive classis ‘You Spin me Round’.  One of the most loveable things about Newton Faulkner is that he is not just another casualty of Brit pop and he doesn’t take himself too seriously.  The night before the show he was at the Brit awards and he made a few references where he simply didn’t know how to act on an occasion of such pompousness and ego!  The sense of irony is that half of the bands there weren’t fit to hold his guitar!  Most of the bands today use an acoustic guitar to work out a song – this show is about that acoustic guitar and I have never seen anyone use a guitar like he does.  Some of the songs were deeply intense like ‘Uncomfortably Slow’ and ‘People Should Smile More’.  It was almost a journey between laughter and tears and the great thing was that there wasn’t a single person in the room that couldn’t associate to what he was doing.

For the first night of the tour this night was an absolute out and out success.  The last song to be played was the Queen classic ‘Bohemian Rhapsody’.  A very hard and complexed song to play on any instrument but he played it start to finish with just his acoustic guitar.  A very very hard song to play yet Newton made it look as simple as can be.

This evening was a dream of a concert and how it is supposed to be.  To be overwhelmed by the quality of talent and music yet totally captivated, one minute fixated and then almost crying with laughter.  At the end of the show it was evident to see the departure of 2000 very happy people.

If you have ever lost your faith in live music  or if pure talent still exists – this is the only person that I have seen in a long time how will restore your passion in full.  Over the next few years you watch Newton Faulkner as the best British talent we have to offer, the envy of the world.

For more information about Newton Faulkner please visit his website www.newtonfaulkner.com

Support Band Myspace http://www.myspace.com/angusandjuliastone

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