The Fray Review - Birmingham

Holy hell, this was one long trip first of all. Me and my brother (let’s call him Jordan, as that is his name) got there insanely early, around seven hours before the event at the Carling Live Academy in Birmingham, and other people didn’t show up until about two hours later. We rushed down the stairs and got the best fucking seats.

We were that god damn close that we could have touched the lead singer. Before I get around to discussing The Fray, let’s start by appreciating the support act of Brett Dennen & John Solo, whom I initially described as poor man's Jason Mraz, he finally had a good song to finish with.

I can’t recall any of the lyrics, unfortunately, but the guy came out without footwear, which I guess was a bit unusual. My brother is learning guitar, and noted that his funky looking leg movements were just a way of him keeping rhythm. Now on to THE FRAY!

I can’t remember what song they came out to but I remember it being very good. When How To A Save A Life started the whole fucking place jumped. My voice was strained by the end of it. Other songs they played were:

Over My Head, You Found Me (my personal favourite), Never Say Never and a load more good things. Isaac also played some Kanye West songs according to a girl we’d met in the queue. I’ve never really listen to him, but the song was good.

 

Obviously the lead singer was the best part of the band, but their back up singer (the guy above) was pretty excellent too. However, their fucking drummer. My god. You need major props my friend. Ben. That was his name. He was sweating loads later on in the show, and kept doing some weird things with his mouth, but between him, Tony Thaxton from Motion City Soundtrack and a few other things I’m seriously considering learning how to play the drums. This isn’t to take anything away from the other guitarist, who was great as well on certain bits.

This was a great gig, and I was at the right place for all the songs. I’ll leave you with this last picture that I took, because I thought it was the best one. I’ll make a good wallpaper of it later, but if someone else wants to do a better job, please do.