Newton Faulkner is a man on the move. Last month the English singer-songwriter was on the island of Ireland for The Wild tour. A few weeks later he was nearly 12,000 miles away, down under, playing in New Zealand. And then five nights ago, and just as the tour poster suggests, Faulkner set sail on a 22-date voyage around mainland UK on his Feels Like Home Tour 2 (the first leg of which took place in this country in late 2022 and involved a series of entirely different locations). He is not someone who likes to hang around.
Tonight’s show in Leeds, like the majority of others on this tour, has long since sold out. 17 years on from Newton Faulkner’s debut album, Hand Built by Robots – a record that reached number 1 in the UK album charts and was later certified double platinum – there is clearly no lessening in his appeal.
I’m pretty sure that Newton Faulkner hasn’t previously played the Old Woollen, yet it feels entirely appropriate that he opens tonight with ‘Been Here Before’ because there is an immediate sense of familiarity about the occasion. It is a feeling that is quickly reinforced when he introduces the first of many “crowd participations” on the ensuing ‘Never Alone’ and it is soon abundantly clear that everyone in the room knows every single word of this, and every other song he plays this evening. The night has already become a most warm and welcoming reunion between old friends.
Over the course of two hours, Newton Faulkner dispels any misguided notion folks may have about singer-songwriters with guitars equating to bleeding hearts. He is a song and dance man at heart and plays with a huge smile on his face, his cheerful, engaging persona shining right through the entire performance.
He traverses the length and breadth of his recording career. We get a sizeable chunk of his debut album including ‘Dream Catch Me’, which affirms an old Faulkner family saying: “Always play the song that paid for your house.” There is ‘Full Fat’ – which admittedly was only added to the track listing of Hand Built by Robots as an iTunes bonus – which gets a rather rogue bluesy arrangement complete with its very own mouth trumpet interlude. And ‘People Should Smile More’ receives its first airing on this tour before ‘U.F.O.’ eventually makes an unscheduled appearance after having been left off the original setlist.
Another album that is well represented tonight is 2017’s Hit The Ground Running which features – for me, anyway – the show’s absolute stand-out song, ‘Fingertips’ highlighting the sublime dexterity of Faulkner’s guitar-playing and the wonderfully soulful resonance of his voice.
And as the show draws to a triumphant close, Newton Faulkner then dazzles us with a stunning reading of ‘Bohemian Rhapsody’, imbuing it with his own individual interpretation and playful improvisation of the Queen classic. All that is left is for him to play ‘Write It on Your Skin’ whilst orchestrating a jump-off in the audience which by now he has split into two rival factions of pirates and Vikings. And after all that he then gets piped off the stage to the sound of Glen Campbell’s peerless reading of Jimmy Webb’s ‘Wichita Lineman’. Now, that’s entertainment.
Photos: Simon Godley
More photos of Newton Faulkner at the Old Woollen are HERE
