The tiny venues he started out in were never going to hold Sam Fender. Five years after his debut, the 30-year-old has conquered major festivals, packed Newcastle United’s football ground and announced more stadium dates for next year, which makes this first of two nights at the 23,500 capacity Co-op Live seem relatively intimate. The former North Shields barman’s deeply personal themes – such as Seventeen Going Under’s raging line about the benefits system (“I see my mother/the DWP see a number”) – are made universal by fantastic, epic songs, passionately delivered by what could be a geordie version of Bruce Springsteen’s E Street Band.
The chilling Dead Boys, about male suicide, makes a brilliantly unlikely arena opener, but Fender is previewing third album People Watching, due in the new year. Once again, his north-east upbringing provides the fuel for his fire. The thunderous title track – where “somebody’s darling’s on the street tonight” – paints a vivid snapshot of “this crippled island”, glimpsed sorrowfully through the window on a late night journey home. The bouncier Nostalgia’s Lie refuses the temptation to look back through rose-coloured glasses: “these streets break my heart”. Other songs are musically mellower. Wild Long Lie and Arm’s Length perhaps reflect the widescreen chimes of the War on Drugs or Fender’s fellow geordie Mark Knopfler. New band member Brooke Bentham (vocals/guitar), who the singer knew when they were teenage buskers, has brought a feminine dimension.
Fender starts rifling through the songs that got him here: a thrillingly punky Howdon Aldi Death Queue, a beautifully reflective Spit of You, a topical Hypersonic Missiles et al. With his minimal chatter and affecting vocal tremor, the singer-guitarist cuts an understated, humble presence. Even when the entire crowd are bellowing his “whoah-oh-ohs”, he simply quips “Got some singers here, haven’t we?” as if performing in the local boozer.
The show gradually becomes a stream of massed, cathartic sing-alongs, none louder than Seventeen Going Under, which seems to capture everyday realities and hardships in a way few contemporary songwriters can.
• Sam Fender plays the O2, London, on 10 and 12 December, then tours
