W.S. Walcott Medicine Show

Frank Turner Live at Starland Ballroom (2024-08-23)

It was exactly 2 months ago in Philadelphia that Frank Turner wound up the first leg of his 2024 American Undefeated Tour.  After a summer of hitting the European festival circuit, Turner and his Sleeping Souls bandmates made their way back to these shores to commence the second leg of Undefeated ‘24 in that hotbed of rock and roll, Sayreville, NJ at the renowned Starland Ballroom.  For this part of the tour we got a reprise of opening act Bridge City Sinners as well as a return of Bedouin Soundclash who toured with Turner a summer (or maybe two) ago.

I’m not sure what I can possibly say about Turner and his ball of energy stage show that I haven’t previously said at least a thousand times.  I’ve truly run out of superlatives to use in describing what a Frank Turner & The Sleeping Souls show is like.  But alas I will give it the old college try nonetheless.

Bedouin Soundclash started the evening’s festivities off with an enjoyable if a tad subdued opening set of their patented blend of indie/soul/reggae/ska.  If their set was somewhat lacking in energy, it was more than made up for in the following set from Portland, OR’s favorite folk anarcho steampunk outfit Bridge City Sinners.  I’ve seen them 3 times now and led by lead singer Libby Lux, The Sinners have each and every time lit the crowd up like a pack of firecrackers in a garbage pail.

Which brings me to Turner and the Sleeping Souls.  Frank and the rest of the band quietly took to the darkened stage with little to no fanfare and immediately broke into “Eulogy” from 2011’s England Keep My Bones followed by a seamless segue into, “Try This At Home” with one of my favorite lyrics from him:

‘Cause we write love songs in C

We do politics in G

We sing songs about our friends in E minor

So tear down the stars now and take up your guitars

Come on folks and try this at home

With the next song, “Nevermind The Back Problems” off of the new one, Turner did something which I don’t recall him ever having done before.  Only 3 songs into the set, he was already prompting the crowd to start a circle pit.  Now if you know, you know that circle pits and Frank Turner shows pretty much go hand in hand.  But first off, rarely does a crowd need to be prompted to start one and secondly, it’s rare that when a nudge in that direction is needed that it should come down during only the third song of the night.  I’m not sure if this was Frank just being uber stoked or the crowd being a little less so, or probably the most likely scenario, a little bit of both.  I did have a conversion after the show about the crowd and how fickle it seemed…at points during the evening it was totally into it, dancing, moshing, shouting and singing like crazy.  And then at other moments the crowd seemed totally out of it.  In any event, none of this seemed to deter Frank from putting on a monster of a show, blowing through song after song at a breakneck pace that ultimately allowed him to pack some 25 or so songs in.

The middle section of the set was particularly strong iMHO.  Starting with a sped up version of “Letters”, we would then get a progression of “Haven’t Been Doing So Well” to “Plain Sailing Weather” to requested “St. Christopher” to “Opening Act Of Spring” to “Be More Kind” (I might be in the minority but being quite honest, I do wish that this one be put into retirement for a bit) followed by “Ballad Of Me And My Friends” and “I Knew Prufrock”.

All in all, Friday night in Sayreville proved to be a great show.  No it wasn’t the best show I’ve seen from Frank and the boys but it was pretty damned fine.  The song selection and pace of the show was fantastic.  The energy coming from the stage was top notch and aside from the on again off again crowd the only complaint I could possibly come up with about this show would be the gosh darned red lights on stage.  (Any of my fellow concert photographers will understand this gripe of mine).  This show ultimately proved to be just what I needed to hold me over until Lost Evenings.  See you all in Toronto next month!

Frank Turner & The Sleeping Souls Slideshow

Bridge City Sinners Slideshow

Bedouin Soundclash Slideshow