The Beat Surrender

I wasn’t sure I would get into this gig as I wasn’t on the guest list (some mix up no doubt) and to be honest wasn’t all that bothered. I have liked some of Newton Faulkner’s work but I was starting with what could have been flu (but ended up as a bad cold). However, after a few phone calls I think they felt sorry for me and let me in.

The support was already on and I missed a few songs, however surprisingly the hall was already packed and people seemed to be really appreciative of him. I spent the evening before on the Internet looking up Liam Gerner and quite liked what I heard I had been looking forward to this. He seemed to have good stage presence and was building a good rapport with the audience. However, for me the live set didn’t quite come up to the standard of the studio recordings. Just too many sound effects on the backing track, they overwhelmed what could have been a really good set.

Newton Faulkner is the son of a successful children’s author, aged 22 he taught himself the guitar aged 13. At 16, he won a place at The Academy of Contempory Music in Guildford. His debut album “Hand built by Robots” was released in July 2007 and quickly went platinum, he seems to have been tirelessly touring for years.

Newton came on to massive applause and promptly went into a really intricate guitar section, moving seamlessly to I Need Something, the crowd loved this. This guy really likes to talk and engage the audience in the show, between each track we were treated to a gag or two and lots of banter. He managed to introduce most of the tracks with a tale of how they had come to be written or how the title had been changed for release. Next up was Full Fat which was originally going to be called Santa Claus is Green, but the record company thought this would confuse people as it was to be released in March!

We also had explanations of the different cords he could use, totally mind-blowing or boring dependant on your level of interest. I have to say he kept me interested to the end and helped my flu/cold no end. A stand out track was People Should Smile More, this really got everyone bouncing around, great beat and more opportunity for the banter and jokes. Another crowd favourite was UFO but not sure if this was due to the dance moves, the bongo effect he got from the guitar or the strange noise he started to make (sounded like an animal in distress) it was all quite strange but in a really interested sort of way.

All I Got came next with the news that he had been growing the locks for nine years but his Dad had given him a trim the other week as they were starting to get in the way of playing. We then had a long-winded explanation of why he had done a cover version of Teardrop by Massive Attack but not before, he did a bit of 2 Unlimited and Play That Funky Music. Teardrop for me is an excellent track, shows his vocal range off really well. I get the feeling that this size of venue is just perfect for Newton Faulkner, any bigger and he would lose that intimate feeling which seemed to be essential for him, any smaller and I think there would have been a riot, people just seem to love him, young or old, male or female it didn’t seem to matter.

Second half of the show and he covered She’s Got Time and For Gods Sake. It was about now that Sponge Bob was mentioned for the first time, now I’ve never seen Newton Faulkner before so this left me a little bemused. However on with the show, Feels Like Home was what I would call a typical Newton Faulkner track, very jolly and bounces along at a great pace, best acoustic guitar I’ve heard for sometime and he has a really nice voice. The audience really heckled him but he seemed to feed off this and the louder the heckling got the funnier he became.

Continue