FRANK TURNER & THE SLEEPING SOULS WEMBLEY ARENA

In this age of talent shows and wealthy record labels, success comes almost overnight to a select group of young musicians. But, as 30-year-old folk singer Frank Turner, standing on the stage of Wembley Arena, pointed out, “Simon Cowell didn’t make a phone call to make this happen.” After 11 years of playing countless small gigs throughout the world, through sheer fancreated buzz, Turner took his brand of energetic folk rock to the world-famous venue and played what may be the show of his life.

Billy Bragg, as the main support, represented a turn of the tables. Once a boyhood hero to Turner, Bragg has easily been the biggest influence on his music. Both started their careers in punk bands, the angry leftovers of which bleed through their folk songs (though Turner’s aren’t quite so weighted with politics). But on this night, young Turner surpassed his hero; Bragg could only be grateful that he’d been invited along.

As Turner has matured, his sound has become steadily folkier with each album. His latest, and fourth, England Keep My Bones, with its ballads telling of English countryside and his Winchester home, has been a progression from his earlier songs about ex-girlfriends and getting drunk for two days in Bethnal Green.

His almost stubbornly straightforward lyrical style has been derided by some critics, who loathe his refusal to dress his songs up with abstract concepts or metaphors, preferring, as he does, a simple narrative approach. When it comes to live shows, this works powerfully in his favour. With the songs being easily memorised, they result in thousands of people singing almost every one back at him – verse and chorus.

It is with this sense of unity that Turner and his lively backing band managed to make a giant cavern of 12,000 people feel like an intimate gig. He even pulled his mother on to the stage to play a harmonica solo – something which, despite her claiming she had no experience playing the instrument, she took marvellously in her stride.

He thrilled the crowd with a cover of Bob Dylan’s The Times They Are A-changin’ accompanied by Bragg, and a hair-raising performance of Queen’s Someone to Love that revealed a rarely seen vocal range, before closing with an enormous singalong to fan favourite Photosynthesis.

Though Turner has sworn that his next tour will return to the small venues of his past, there’s no doubt that sheer demand will mean he’ll be back in an arena before too long.

Catherine Gee