Saint Raymond - Sheffield Plug

SAINT RAYMOND – THE PLUG, SHEFFIELD – FRIDAY 27 NOVEMBER 2015

Review by Becca Jordan

Just a week away from his return to his home city of Nottingham to take part in Rock City’s 35^th anniversary celebration, Saint Raymond staked a claim to be the UK’s number one pop-indie merchant. Sheffield’s Plug venue was bursting at its seams to hear the Saint himself (also known as Callum Burrows) blast out 17 bangers, many taken from his new album, Young Blood.

Any Friday night blues quickly melted away with an immense entrance of dimming lights, smoke pouring across the stage, crashing sounds and flashing strobes, illuminating the anticipation on the faces in the crowd. As the audience erupted into screaming cheers, Saint Raymond stood, all in black, centre stage, silhouetted against the lights, perfectly poised as he launched straight into his opening track, Letting Go, followed by Be There.

It wasn’t long before we saw the return of ‘the tongue’, Callum’s much-loved signature move, sparking even more cheers from the crowd. Grinning like the proverbial Cheshire Cat, he shouted “HELLO SHEFFIELD, LET’S HAVE A PARTY”, ramping up the enthusiasm of the crowd to bursting point, before throwing himself into performing Everything She Wants, followed by crowd favourite I Want You, then Don’t Fail Me Now and Come Back To You, which was recently used in a River Island advert - the atmosphere was electric.

After an energy-packed cover of Lean On he performed Wildheart, messing up one of his lines, which if anything just made the audience love him even more as they sang it for him while he grinned cheekily. The tone of the concert then became more emotional and the lighting softened as the audience swayed in time to As We Are Now, which he explained was written about the time when all of his friends went off to uni, and Movie In My Mind.

Picking up the party atmosphere, St R then introduced a song which had not made it onto his new album, and dedicated it to his brother whom he said shouted at him for not including it in the album, which provoked cheers, just about heard over the screaming crowd, from the group of lads behind us, which included Callum’s brother, who had been enjoying their night to the fullest since the first song. He then went on to perform a song for his next album, We Are Fire, which was met with a whole lot of excitement. Young Blood and Ghosts came next, and the euphoria of performing was written all over his face as everybody chanted the chorus’ back at him.

The lights went dark and Callum and the band disappeared from the stage - the audience were having none of it. They chanted “WE WANT MORE” until the musicians reappeared, laughing, for their encore of Never Let You Go and Bonfires, which St Raymond revealed he had written at the age of 15, which only made the whole thing even more impressive. His closing song was Fall At Your Feet, during which he encouraged the audience to dance like they never had before, and they definitely did. The energy was insane, the exhilaration on the faces of all of the band spurred the crowd on to completely let loose and dance until the very last note had been played.

Unlike a lot of egocentric musicians who get kicks from crowd-surfing and showboating, St Raymond was much more interested in interacting with the crowd, running onto the podiums and grinning at thrilled fans, jumping down to join them and take selfies, absolutely making their night. The concert was a staggeringly impressive 90 minutes of entertainment and elation, and an experience that I would repeat in a heartbeat. From those super-fans who knew every single word to all of his songs, to those who just came to have fun, every single person in the crowd was singing along and connecting with the music from start to finish. Anybody lucky enough to have tickets for his Friday night performance at Rock City in his hometown of Nottingham is going to have absolute blast.

More photos below: