Last night I attended the final gig in Frank Turner’s current tour for his excellent new album Positive Songs for Negative People. The gig was packed and full of people dancing and singing as loud as they could. It was an unexpected great experience. It was a sort of home coming for him after a long tour and busy few years.
Frank is a self-styled classical liberal and I started to have a look back at the posts from Brian back in 2014. It struck me that Brian picks up on something that said back then, “he is the living embodiment of the above notions”. He isn’t political and shouldn’t be held up as a god for libertarians, but he does what we all probably do – go about living our lives, being passionate about what we do, caring for friends and those who need help and not apologising for our views. In essence, we need to remember that in these turbulent days we need to do the one thing that we can do to change the world. That is we need to live as best we can by living in what we believe in. And for that reason going to his gig so soon after the Bataclan was probably one the best things that I could do as a music fan.
As someone who used to work in the music industry in London I’m surprised that we never met in the middle of all the industry people, talented musicians and amagi tattoos. As he is my neighbour in Islington, I invite him to have a drink and get to know a few of crazy classical liberals.
Good.
The quality of a Frank Turner gig depends largely on the singing voice of the chap behind you who knows every word but lacks moderation.
I have been to many.
Not heard of him before, quite likable music.
Other than a very few fan sing-a-longs, I guess ‘Hi Ho Silver Lining’ is an example, why do concert-goers sing while the performer is singing, unless explicitly invited to do so by the performer?
I don’t take my saxophone when I see Scott Hamilton, and Bryn Terfel does not need help from my voice when he is on stage. Hamilton and Terfel are better than me at playing saxophone and singing, and the fact that people pay to see and hear them but don’t pay to see and hear me refelcts this.
Seriously, why not listen, with concentration, to the performer?
Thanks dominique. Kind words.
I too was at that gig, and it was thoroughly excellent—and your words above are quite true.
It is one of the (many) reasons that I gave up swearing on the internet, and decided to simply try to apply my beliefs to real life.
DK
His song “Sons of Liberty” (on the Poetry of the Deed album) should be the Samizdata theme song!
http://genius.com/Frank-turner-sons-of-liberty-lyrics
I’m a big fan. I’ve seen him nine times in six cities here in the States (and hope to see him many, many more times). Great messages in his songs all around.
Edward. The more relevant song, relative to the OP is Poetry of the Deed from the same album. The whole theme of Dominique and Brian’s writing being summed up by this:
Put your Baudelaire away and come outside and play.
Me and all my friends are poets of the deed,
we’re exactly what this country needs.
We scratch until we’re drunk, we drink until we bleed.
We are what we believe.
And there is more in there too. “Words and technical theses” sound like our kind of thing? Indeed it does.
If Frank turns up at yours Dominique you know where to send him next.