REVIEW: Tom Grennan at Newcastle’s O2 City Hall
Written by Jake Chappell on 21st March 2023
Performing to a full venue, Tom got the crowd going with his biggest releases when he performed in Newcastle last week.
Before we were treated to Tom, we welcomed some amazing support artists to the stage. Frankie Beetlestone and GRACEY got things underway, and I would have loved to have heard more from them.
Something many people do before going to a gig nowadays is look for a setlist to see if the artist is going to play their favourite song. Tom looked like he was following a specific setlist throughout the tour, but not Newcastle, oh no, he mixed it up for Newcastle. While it looked like he was going to open the show of his song Don’t Break the Heart, but instead that song come a good third way down his set.
He performed some of his chart-topping songs, as well as the full versions of songs he’s featured on, such as Not Over Yet and All Goes Wrong.
One thing I wanted to mention was his band, who made the transitions between songs near enough seamless, you could tell the setlist was planned to blend into each track well.
The entire audience were jumping and dancing to songs such as Lionheart (Fearless), you could literally feel the entire arena bounce.
Something else that made the show was when Tom spotted a sign in the crowd that read “can I sing Remind Me with you please”. Tom, being the crowd worker that he is, asked the crowd if they would like the fan to Join him on stage to sing the song. Newcastle, being Newcastle, cheered for the fan to sing, so Tom got him on stage and they both wowed the crowd, Tom being shocked that he was so good.
Unlike most artists, when it came to the time in the show where the artist goes off stage while the audience cheers for an encore, instead of going off stage Tom said: “it feels too awkward and I’m having too much fun.”
He came back to centre stage and heard another fan shout that it was his 30th birthday, so sang happy birthday to the fan and encouraged the crowd to sing along.
After singing happy birthday he proceeded to sing one last song, You Are Not Alone, whilst reminding the audience to get home safe, a nice touch showing that he cares for the fans that came out to see his show.
