More about: Tom-Grennan

For someone who sold out Brixton O2 Academy just weeks after releasing his debut album, Tom Grennan enters the room with subtlety. No flashy production, no intricate moves or lighting, just a spotlight and a guitar, opening with an acoustic rendition of penultimate album track ‘Sweet Hallelujah’.

“I can’t believe I’m stood on this stage at Brixton O2 Academy. I’m a very lucky boy,” he gushes, two arms raised high and fist pumping the air, time after time, as if watching the best football match of his life. No time is wasted as he rolls straight through into the crowd pleasing ‘Royal Highness’ and ‘Praying’, before taking off his gold Blood Brothers shirt and strutting around in a white vest.

“Anyone drunk? I know it’s a Tuesday everyone’s at work in the morning. If you are I hope this one doesn’t sober you up” he taunts before launching, predictably, into ‘Sober’.

Grennan is fast becoming this generation’s likely lad, amidst dedicating songs to his mum and pandering to audiences that span all ages and genders; he’s what the old and out-of-touch love to call ‘real music’ and to everyone else just a humble, down to earth bloke from Bedford.

His rasping vocals slice through the Brixton air and are screamed back to him by girls, their not-so-secretly enjoying it boyfriends and parents alike. As he stands front and centre stage with arms raised high, the applause goes on for what seems like forever.

‘Found What I’ve Been Looking For’ starts as a slow burning football-esque chant, teasing its way up to a 5,000 person sing-a-long, so grand and passionate that it would be blasphemous to suggest that this is anything but the beginning for Tom Grennan. As he says himself ‘let’s do this all again, next year. But bigger’. See you there.

More about: Tom-Grennan