Simon RushworthSunday saw the curtain come down on Sam Fender’s historic three-night St James’s Park residency. Simon Rushworth reflects on the award-winning songwriter’s wide-ranging impact and his ongoing support for the North East, its people and its creative potential.
Witnessing Samuel Thomas Fender, a humble lad from North Shields, hold more than 150,000 wide-eyed devotees in the palm of his hand across three wonderful nights at his beloved St James’s Park inevitably stirred myriad emotions in multiple generations.
For fans of a certain vintage (and, famously, every demographic is represented at a Sam Fender show), a typically authentic outpouring of an increasingly significant life’s work may well have brought to mind a prescient quote from the late, great Brian Wilson.
It was the supremely gifted co-founder of The Beach Boys who said of his self-appointed role as an artistic trailblazer: “First of all, I want people to understand that I’m here to create for them. To create music for people so they’ll know that I’m a source of love. And they can depend on my name.”
The socio-political champion
Given Wilson’s sad passing earlier this month it seems apt, for a moment, to focus on those careful words from a true master of his craft. Fender, a fast-evolving socio-political champion in the mould of John Lennon, Bob Marley and Bruce Springsteen (more on him later) is a source of many things to many people and love, quite clearly, is chief among them.
Love for his family (look no further than Spit Of You and Remember My Name), friends (Dead Boys and Seventeen Going Under are compelling examples) and, of course, his millions of fans (every song included on the People Watching tour feels as if it holds a personal connection to those religiously singing back lyrics rooted in deeply relatable reality) shines through with life-affirming legitimacy.
Sure Fender, just as Wilson will always be, is a source of universal love. Yet across three sold-out shows on Tyneside, the biggest and most significant of a career that marches on with relentless ambition, this unassuming 31-year-old underlined the fact that he inspires so much more.
Sam Fender: the human face of North East energy
Fender is a galvanising source of pride, inclusivity, aspiration and overwhelming, unapologetic joy. Last month Kim McGuinness’s North East Combined Authority, based just across the road from the Gallowgate scene of three city centre gigs as dynamic as they were historic, rebranded our region as an area ‘made of energy’. Surely Fender is the electrifying, human face of that energy.
Wilson also wanted people to know that they could ‘depend’ on his name. On the face of it, to describe Fender as ‘dependable’ feels a tad disingenuous — we don’t necessarily want our riotous rock and roll heroes to be reliable and responsible when, more than ever, they represent a much-needed release from often stifling reality.
And yet Fender is, indeed, a staunchly reliable guy, steadfast in his beliefs and unremittingly reliable. Working class people, faced with too many financial pressures to mention, paid good money to spend time in the company of a performer they can trust and that trust was rewarded, tenfold. Sam Fender’s fans, like Wilson’s before him, can depend on his name. Unreservedly.
Showcasing the next generation
The next generation of North East acts can also depend on their famous peer for unequivocal support: a feature of his celebratory homecoming shows is to elevate emerging artists to stadium status: such opportunities are invaluable within an industry that’s notoriously difficult to crack.
Thursday saw Joe Bartley, from Denton Burn, join his idol on stage — the 15-year-old busker had previously been ‘spotted’ by Fender and the pair delivered an emotive rendition of Borders after only meeting for the first time 24 hours earlier. On Saturday Newcastle’s ebullient ERNIE, a long-time favourite of the multi award-winning headliner, kicked things off and Sunday reintroduced North Tyneside’s celebrated folk rock throwbacks Hector Gannet two years after Aaron Duff and co. fulfilled the same role for their friend and neighbour.
Espousing the regional scene is no token gesture, by the way. When Fender’s not traversing the globe as the focal point for A-league festivals and his own headline events, he’s likely to be found cradling a pint of Guinness and encouraging fellow performers at the Low Lights Tavern, The Engine Room or Three Tanners — vibrant North Shields staples that represent the lifeblood of grassroots music and trusted independent venues that help to nurture the very best creative talent that the North East has to offer.
When Fender says he would love nothing more than to see a fellow Geordie emulate his remarkable achievements it’s not cheap PR fluff. He really, really means it. Thanks to his invaluable patronage and the tireless work of like-minded regional innovators, including Newcastle-based Generator, that day may come sooner than expected.
Divisive or unifying? Sunderland stance sparks debate
Those who lazily dismiss Fender’s trademark schtick as a laddy, almost loutish take on rock and roll’s most derided tropes couldn’t be wider of the mark. He sips on water, not beer and, beneath the Magpies-centric, Mackem-bashing surface of an entertainer who understands his love of all things Newcastle United can be as divisive as it’s unifying, lies an erudite and thoughtful performer who uses the lyrical heft of his songs and his increasingly influential profile to peddle some seriously important messages.
Some are more blatant than others. Fender insisted the decision to align the People Watching stadium shows with international humanitarian organisation Médecins Sans Frontières ‘is not about being political, it’s about helping kids’. That he followed up with a defiant call to ‘Free Palestine’ — before launching into set closer Hypersonic Missiles — suggested otherwise.
A mine of information
These fabulously juxtaposed Fender gigs are as much history lessons as they are opportunities to lose yourself completely in the collective wave of emotion more commonly associated with mid-summer stadium shows. Almost 40 years to the day since Bruce Springsteen delivered back-to-back St James’s Park concerts — and donated $20,000 to local miners’ support groups — the reluctant heir to The Boss’s blue-collar throne recalled his grandparents’ County Durham pit village heritage before joining the Easington Colliery Band for a rousing rendition of Remember My Name. As the tears flowed, the synergy was palpable.
Fender has previously admitted that listening to his Godfather’s tales of Springsteen’s legendary Tyneside gigs ‘started a fire in me’. And while he may cringe at the obvious comparison ‘with his biggest hero’ four decades down the line — ‘I’m like a shit Geordie version [of Springsteen]’ — this run of career-defining concerts at a venue synonymous with New Jersey’s finest will only serve to fuel what Fender clearly deems to be an embarrassing conversation.
No one man band
He shouldn’t fret. Springsteen, like his admiring acolyte, is a man of the people for whom loyalty and respect means more than accolades and adulation. Fender’s heartfelt recognition of his band reinforces the sense that both songwriters are cut from the same self-effacing cloth. Long-time wingmen Dean Thompson, Joe Atkinson, Tom Ungerer, Drew Michael, Johnny Davis, Mark Webb and ‘new recruit’ Brooke Bentham are the glue that binds this crew together — they’re the instinctive embodiment of the old adage that the whole is greater than the sum of its parts. Doesn’t Fender know it.
During the course of a momentous few days at St James’s Park, that collective power manifested itself most effectively in the punky angst of Howdon Aldi Death Queue, the Toto-tinged Crumbling Empire, the darkly introspective Dead Boys and the call-to-arms camaraderie at the heart of Thin Lizzy’s The Boys Are Back In Town (featuring Fender’s ageless former guitar teacher Phil Martin).
Sam Fender, like Brian Wilson before him, is here to create music and spread love. That people can depend upon him now, and in the future, goes without saying.
* This article originally appeared in North East daily newspaper The Journal.
Images courtesy of India Fleming