Photo Credit: Kevin O’Sullivan
A sold out Eventim Apollo played host to the hearty tones of the final night of Tom Walker’s ‘I Am’ tour, with the mighty Kingfishr supporting — and we were lucky enough to be there for every second.
Tom Walker has been around for a few years now; a slew of singles, each subsequent release gradually more commercially successful than the last, along with 2017’s powerful EP Blessings, helped firmly established him as a mightily voiced maestro. And then came Leave a Light On. Talk about omnipresent; to put it lightly, Leave a Light On blew up. For about a year after its release in 2017 — or, to be more accurate, from April 2018’s Sony Bravia advert, which used it as its soundtrack — Leave a Light On was everywhere. Deservedly so, the beautiful ballad-come-rock song manages to showcase both Walker’s poignant, emotional lyricism and his unbelievably powerful vocals. It was even nominated for Best British Single at the 2019 BRIT awards, with Walker winning Best Breakthrough Act. A headline tour and a debut album, just before lockdown, saw sold out show after sold out show, supported by none other than Maisie Peters; now, with sophomore album I Am on its way, and the tour dramatically sold out well in advance of the shows, history seems to be repeating itself.
First up, though, came the lads in Kingfishr. The trio’s recent success has been nothing short of astounding, with sold out show following sold out show — including two sold out nights at the iconic 3Olympia in Dublin — and their recently announced Oct/Nov tour doesn’t seem to have fallen far from the proverbial tree. With the three taking to the stage, guitars and banjos in hand, it didn’t take long to understand why. From the opening notes of Heart In The Water, frontman Edmond Keogh’s voice booming through the sold out Eventim Apollo and cascading over the thousands arrayed before them, the realisation began to set in: acoustic, unadorned, brilliance. The crowd-pleasing jubilance of Headlands — “the police turned up at our farm, it was fantastic craic”, we were told — and the frankly absurd roars of eyes don’t lie followed shortly after, the three’s sound blissfully clear in its mixing, before Kingfishr made a rather rogue choice, descending into the middle of the crowd for Shot In The Dark. A hard ask for Eventim Apollo, the hundreds seated up in the balcony having to stand and crane their necks for even a glimpse of their little void opened up in the crowd, but the heart-warming visual of hundreds of phone lights blasting across the room surely made up for it.
Headliners have had quieter reactions than the cheers and screams that drowned out the room, as the three traipsed back on stage; the hastily played threesome of new single Afterglow, the beautiful Leave, and the soothing Caroline called an end to the proceedings, as they played fast and loose with their presumed timings, in a rush to give the audience everything they had. They might not have had a choice in the matter, though; the crowd’s reaction reflected a truly adoring audience, and cries for an encore persisted long after they’d departed.
From their short stint on stage, their tour in November — at a venue just down the road in O2 Shepherd’s Bush Empire — promises to be something special indeed. 10/10
Having Tom Walker and Kingfishr on the bill together seems unfair to other artists. Just look at the musical masterclass that followed; the electro-gospel opening of as-of-yet unreleased track Holy Ghost, Tom milking the vocal-less anticipation from the crowd for all it was worth, took its sweet time to get going. And then Tom opened his mouth, the signature thunder of his cries filling the room, sucking the air out and leaving the room hollow, breathless in awe.
It’s almost funny just how good a singer he is, and how comfortable he is on stage. Funnier, though, is how quickly you get used to it — taken in a vacuum, it’s genuinely stunning. Even older songs, revamped for the tour, sound spell binding. The ferocious Rapture, not played since 2019, feels almost demonic in its ferocity; the beautiful Just You and I, the acoustic guitar coming out and the band seeming to fade away in the face of Walker’s genuine outpouring of love, gives the impression of a man so hopelessly in love with life that everything else fades in comparison; debut album What A Time To Be Alive standout Angels, almost bluesy in its gritty existence, crescendo into an explosive climax — a stadium show would surely have featured huge gouts of flame. And, through it all, came Tom’s beaming smile, shining through the room.
With a host of songs going between ferociously rocky to ear-worm chart pop, it would be easily for the set to feel disjointed. Nothing could be farther from the truth. Whether it was a sort-of-cover of Hybrid Minds’ Tom Walker-featuring Castles; the emotional The Best Is Yet To Come, with Tom taking to the piano; the contemplative, almost Spaghetti Western-seeming Cry Out; or the frankly phenomenal, expansive excitement of the unreleased Echoes — a stand out of the set, a beautiful ballad with an electronically explosive chorus, fiery and frantic, that quickly faded back to gentle keys and the beats of a drum pad — the night felt seamless.
The sanguine drenched Burn, haunting falsetto giving way to incendiary screams, guitarist Laura Oakes providing a beautiful, almost cinematic, contrast, helped cap off the night to a euphoric Hammersmithian audience; but, of course, it was then encore time.
You’d think that Leave A Light On would have lost some of its strength, having been all over the world. You’d be wrong — although literal thousands of phones thrust in the air to record it may have left the message feeling misconstrued. As the gentle keys of the outro faded into the ether, echoing through the room, Tom’s tour had finally drawn to a close. And, through it all, Tom still didn’t stop smiling. The thousands present could tell that not only did he deserve to be up on that stage, but he still can’t believe the fact that he was, that he‘s able to play sold out show after sold out show. His humility cut through the hearty, heady intoxication of his vocals and highlighted just how wonderful a performer he really is.
A rapturous, and authentic, night, from a brilliant Brit (Scot) whose boisterous proverbial bark is truly as good as the edgy bite that pervades his emotional sets. 10/10
Written By: James O’Sullivan
