Over two months ago I saw my 25th Frank Turner gig and I have no good excuse why I didn’t get around to writing a bit more about it. I don’t want to dwell on that either. So here I go…
It was so much fun! More than usual in fact. Probably because everyone on stage had so much fun themselves. They were on a roll, with their instruments and their banter and their music and just everything. Whether it was the discussion of Nigel’s beard or Matt’s mandoline solos. There also were so many old and new gig buddies with me in the front rows, which always makes a show extra special fun. Thanks for that, guys.
Frank himself considered this night one of their best shows this summer as well, at least that’s what he said on stage several times and it sounded quite honest. Here is the list of songs from that night (This was the 1st time I ever really tried very hard to get one of those after the gig ended. It was a special anniversary show for me after all :-) )
What else is there to report? We had a “running in circle” circle pit for “Out of Breath”. It’s not something I participate in, but it was fun to watch from the barrier. Yes, of course I tried (and succeeded) to get a spot at the barrier. It makes watching a show so much less tiring for me. We sang Happy Birthday for Cathrin, who was also sent on a crowd surf to hug Tom, the new lighting guy at the sound desk. These kind of things are always fun to watch. We also taught Frank a new German word (“Los” instead of “Go” after the German “1,2,3,4…” before the crowdsurf) I loved that the audience automatically did jazzhands for “Glorious You”, without Frank having to do his whole spiel about why and how and so on. It became a tradition by now and I just love it.
“One Foot Before The Other” was my song request and I still like to believe that it’s me you hear screaming (on the bootleg) after the first few chords, because I was so happy he played it. I don’t have any special connection to this song, except that I like to jump and rock along to it like crazy. And he doesn’t play it all that often anymore, so I was thrilled to hear it that night.
After the gig I hoped to catch Frank and the others at the bus and so did about 50 or so other people. For some reason one of those considered me kind of a “VIP fan”, going to many shows, “knowing” the band and such. I think because she saw me talk to one of them. In that moment there also were fans who had seen them over 100 times compared to my mere 25, so… I don’t know. It felt a bit weird, but I admit also kind of cool to be adressed somewhat reverantly by some of the newer fans.
As I had managed to get my hands on a setlist, I wanted to have it signed by each band member and I succeeded with that as it’s seen above. I surprisingly boldly flagged each one down and started my conversation with “It’s been my 25th show tonight” and the request to sign the setlist. I had talked to Nigel on a few other occassions before, but I hardly ever talked to Ben or Tarrant, which I did a bit more this night. Not much, but more than before. I learned a new English term from Tarrant that night, but for the love of God can’t recall now which one that was. I spent quite a bit of time chatting with Matt and mentioned that it was me who threw the present on stage for him at the first night of the Lost Evenings. He remembered that – or was at least polite enough to pretend that he did – and of course I had to ask him about the baby. Which led to him getting out his phone to show me some recent photos. Such a “new dad” move! It was quite adorable. And so is the baby, by the way…
Frank was the last one to come over to us and it was so nice to be greeted with a hug and the impression that he not just remembered my face from somewhere, but that he actually knew who I was. I mean, I neither had to tell him my name nor how to spell it. And I love that he always remembers to spell it with an S instead of a Z. What can I say, I’m a fan(girl). We didn’t really talk much, as there were other fans around who wanted to take a photo with him and I didn’t want to take up too much of his time. He once again stated that he had so much fun at the show himself and to me it seemed like he was kind of riding the same “after-gig” high as the rest of us. Like I said… It was fun!
And here are my photos again…