Lewis Capaldi, Concert Hall, Perth, review: volcanic power in hometown venue the chart-topper has swiftly outgrown
Arriving onstage to the Champions League theme music and a hail of explosive tickertape, the reality of Lewis Capaldi's stage presence is far more modest than the outrageous build-up indicates. A self-described "little sweaty guy who arguably should be in better shape for 22", Capaldi - dressed in what looks like his least-faded plain black shirt and jeans – slouches when he walks.
Last night, Capaldi was on home turf, playing less than an hour's drive from his hometown of Bathgate, and the warmth of the audience reaction was obvious. This 1,600-capacity headline show at Perth Festival of the Arts was booked in before Capaldi's extraordinary run in the charts [seven weeks with the number one UK single earlier this year) made him the leading contender for the "next Ed Sheeran" title.
Compare this to his recently announced arena tour for early 2020 (two nights at Glasgow’s Hydro – combined capacity 25,000 – sold out in a mater of minutes) and it’s clear that shows of this scale are the sort Capaldi will no longer play. His appeal to Sheeran fans is clear; he's also a down-to-earth figure with great unexpected quality as a songwriter and vocalist, in fact the power he unleashes at points here reminds of Joe Cocker.
It was also something of a dry run for the full arena experience, only the second night (after a tiny, unannounced show along the road in Dundee the previous evening) where the young troubadour and his full four-piece band had played an extended selection of tracks from the just-released debut album Divinely Uninspired to a Hellish Extent.
“We'll give this a go, and if it's s---- it never happened,” Capaldi shrugged in advance of the first ever play of album track Maybe, his local audience in tune with some heavily sweary between-song dialogue which appeared to come from a shared place of rough, self-deprecating Scottish humour. The former Doctor Who actor Peter Capaldi is a cousin of the singer’s, and Lewis shares something of his bone-dry but charismatic delivery.
Where he stakes out a territory of his own is in the sheer power of his live vocal delivery and in the unvarnished angst of his lyrics. Capaldi calls himself “a wee fat guy singin’ sad songs”, but the emotional range of his vaulting balladry – written from the perspective of his personal romantic experience – is a study in the painful self-examination which the failure of a relationship brings.
With Bruises, he craves simple affection as a barrier against the cruelties of the world; Headspace begins with mournful electric notes and by the end overflows with thunderous, emotive release; Fade positively pines for a former love, even as its lyric admits “to tell the truth I can’t believe we got this far.” Hope is in short supply, except perhaps in the sun-kissed acoustic driving rock of Hollywood.
“I hope this was everything you've ever dreamed of and more,” Capaldi declared, tongue-in-cheek, while informing us the debut album is number one this weekend. The closer was the big hit Someone You Loved, and the audience singalong was delivered with volcanic power.
