Lyrics: “Pass It Along” – Frank Turner, 2011
It’s been a bit over a week since I joined about 10.000 people on a pilgrimage to Alexandra Palace – the only not royal palace in England (according to the man on stage, I haven’t verified it) – to see Frank Turner play his 3000th show. Three thousand! That sounds like a lot. And it is, even though there are supposed to be bigger bands who have played even more. I do think though, that those bands have been around for even longer than Frank has been doing this as under his own name and not as part of a band.
Anyway: I’ve been along for the ride since show 1447, so you could say I’ve been along for over half of it! Which only is a valid statement if you consider the number of show or the length of time, of course. Frank played his first solo show 21 years ago. I first saw him almost 12.5 years ago, which is over half the time ago. I’ve not seen half of the shows. Only 2.46 % of his total. Or 4.76% of the ones he played since my first show. But numbers don’t mean anything really. (It’s been my show 74, for those who are interested)
These days at a regular (not festival) gig I try to be up front at the barrier more often than not, but I knew I would not consider that for this show. I also was coming with a friend, who isn’t interested in being up front, so we stayed back near the sound desk. And to be honest, I was fine with that, because 10.000 people in a standing room is a lot of people in a vast space. I don’t know if it’s still a bit of underlying “Pandemic PTSD” but the crowd that night made me a tiny bit anxious. Fo no reason really, the corner where we ended up in, was not rowdy at all and a good place to be.
I admit for some reason I had expected a bit more of a “greatest hits” set for this celebratory occasion, but I can see that for Frank himself it also made sense to treat this one as almost a regular gig. He does this for a living and he is still touring the latest album, so the set mostly was a regular current tour set, which was fine by me.
After the show numbers countdown Frank came out with just his guitar and played the first two songs solo with a lot of old photos from the early days shown on the screens (behind the stage and left and right). Even though I wasn’t a part of the early days I got a bit sentimental / borderline weepy. I did not cry though. But the opener “The Ballad of Me and My Friends” is such an iconic anthem for a lot of us people in that crowd that night. I met so many wonderful people through being a fan of his music in the past 12 years. I share so many memories with so many of those people. Memories of gigs and trips and chats and lockdown livestreams. Deep conversations about why we are all doing this, how much his music and his lyrics mean to us and why. Conversations about how his music and the communal experience of singing those songs together helped and still do help all of us in one way or another. It never ceased to amaze me and I’m so glad I was able to become a part of this community. To let myself be a part of this community. Leaving my comfort zone and all that.
Unfortunately I didn’t get to see all that many of those people at the gig or over the weekend. I did mention the 10.000 people and my anxious mind, right? I wasn’t really in the right state of mind to linger around for long after the gig. But I knew they were there with me in spirit.
The second song was ” I Knew Prufrock Before He Got Famous” and by the end of that the Sleeping Souls joined Frank on stage. For this one they still had the montages of early day photos going on on the screens and yes, of course there was an image of Jay (“Beans on Toast”) at the appropriate time. Of all the others probably as well, but I don’t know those (faces) at all.
Next up was “I Still Believe” – and no, this won’t be a song by song recap review post, don’t worry – but this one is the song that started it all for me all those many years ago. In the summer of 2013 was mindlessly skipping TV channels one weekend afternoon and caught this bit of live footage of a festival. Didn’t know the band, liked the song. Liked how the singer danced around after the first verse. Decided to keep watching and paid closer attention to the lyrics. The rest as the saying goes is history.
As stated above, a pretty regular current tour set followed. I’m so glad he’s still playing “Haven’t Been Doing So Well” from the last-but-one album. There are many songs and lyrics which mean the world to me for some reason or another, but this song might have had the biggest impact on me, as it made me seek help and have therapy for about 18 months (April 2022 – August 2023). It was life changing and I try not to throw that term around lightly when it comes to Frank Turner. As laid out in the intro to this “My First Ten Years” post .
When he played the opening chords for “The Road” I guess, many, many people got their phones and cameras ready to catch one particular moment. I was such a long way back that I didn’t. I’m sure the whole gig will be available to watch again on a streaming platform or DVD at some point. But of course I also held my breath for it and cheered after the slight pause and updated lyric
And the nights, three thousand nights I’ve played, a thousand more to go,
Before I take a breath and steel myself for the next three thousand shows.
The encore started with “Undefeated”, which is a great song in general, but of course was made even more special that night because… 3000 shows. And after that they brought it home with classic “let’s jump and dance and sing and have a great time” songs: Polaroid Picture, Get Better, Four Simple Words.
That night and also on my way back home from London the next day and this past week I on and off pondered how much I have changed through these last 12 years in general. I’m not going to bother dissecting how much of the change was through the music, the lyrics, the gigs, the people or just change through life in general. I can’t make that distinction and I don’t know why I should.
With the same conviction that Frank states that he’s a touring musician, these days I can state that I am a Frank Turner fan and probably will be for life. It is a (huge) part of who I am. Not in the possibly slightly obsessive “chronicle every gig in detail on my blog / watch a few interviews to excess / parse every word in all the lyrics and interviews” kind of way it still was a couple of years ago. But in the broad “being a fan of his music changed my life for the better” kind of way. And I will be forever and ever grateful to Frank, his crew and his fanbase for that.
Post Script:
One of the reasons this post took me so long to write / publish, was that I really struggled to deal with the negative, nagging Gremlin voice in my head, who was trying to ruin this memory for me. The Gremlin voice shouting all the things that didn’t go as planned and went wrong, counting off all the circumstances that were a bit annoying. Hammering home the fact that of course it all didn’t go as silly little fangirl me with tons of issues, had imagined it in some back corner of her mind. Shouting that the whole trip was as stupid and insignificant as in general I am as well. That kind of voice.
I’m proud to say that I did manage to shut her up in the end. It just took me a while, hence the delay in putting this post together.
