Catching the support band named Tors, who I have heard recently on Radio 2, what a nice surprise. A very talented band with a big sound, very catchy tunes, and a great rapport with the crowd. We have not seen many support bands that can get a crowd to do whatever they want on block, phone waving, arm swaying, it was great to see, and they are returning to Brum in June. We think they may have underestimated the venue; the Hare and Hounds may be too small for this rising band – ones to watch.

Now for Eurovision hero, Sam Ryder. This, his first proper tour and is a sell out all over. And in the sardine packed O2 Academy tonight, we saw why he has had the meteoritic rise. He has a ball of energy and exuberance, running up and down the stage in his trade mark jumpsuit, and the voice – and what a great voice it is. Obviously with only one album to date, ‘Nothing But Space Man’, most of the set was from it, and very good too, with too many cracking tunes to mention and a trio of covers thrown in, ‘You’ve Got The Love’, ‘We Are Never Ever Getting Back Together’ and ‘Misery Business’. He announced that this was his biggest crowd to date and genuinely looked amazed at the reaction to him. We’re not, he is a very likeable human being who just oozes goodness. Besides having an amazing set of pipes, the feeling in the room tonight was fantastic. One surprise was that he is a decent guitar player, the voice was never in question. And a great idea was that he apparently met the crowd outside and gave them a slip of paper with barcode on which they found out that after singing along with him on an new tune and basically encouraged to take over, the recording would be available free after scanning the code, nice touch.

I’m not sure how long he will be able to do things like that, meeting the crowd before as he will be playing larger and larger venues, no doubt. And of course he had to finish with ‘Spaceman’, sending everyone home feeling over the moon, pun intended. Great night, great entertainer.

Photos by Geoff Griffe
Review by Jenny Griffe