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He enters the stage at Camden’s KOKO with with a big smile, wearing his trademark woollen hat and strumming an acoustic guitar. He is met with huge applause from the audience, and a smattering of “I love you Toms!” showing the affection his fans have for him.
Uplifting songs are his trademark with tracks such as Serotonin, The Best is Yet to Come and Sun Will Shine. Serotonin quotes his father’s wise words ‘Can’t have the moments where you’re truly on top of the world, Without the moments where you’re down in the dirt’ sung with a raw, heartfelt honesty that moves the crowd early on in the set on a lively Friday night.
Tom enthusiastically exclaims to the crowd “F**cking amazing to be back on stage, was a nightmare last year and my voice said f*ck off mate you’ve f*cked it!” adding that when his support slot on the One Republic tour was cancelled as their singer got laryngitis, he said to himself “F*** it shall I become a plumber?”.
His tour titled track The Best Is Yet To Come shows the positivity that radiates from the artist in the simple but profound words ‘Remind ourselves on darker days, The best is yet to come’ clearly hitting home with times being tough and the need to focus on the future without dwelling too much on the present. It’s clear the singer has struggled in the past, both financially and personally, but has come out of the other side with a real positive and grateful mentality.
He dedicates the next song to the love of his life, who was watching him from a balcony. He excitedly tells the crowd “We will get married in a month, been together 10 years”. He says when he met his fiancée he didn’t have a penny to his name and she had to pay for dinner, and wrote the song Just You And I for her.
His openness and relatability has huge appeal and he says lots of people have got married to this tune, or proposed in the crowd with its catchy first line, ‘Let’s get drunk, This year’s been hard for us, no doubt, Let’s raise a glass to a better one’ before challenging the crowd to sing along, teasing that Cardiff was the loudest audience so far.
In a step change venting his frustration with politics, song Number 10 is a biting indictment of the Tory handling of Covid and the cost of living crisis, firmly taking aim at Boris Johnson with the line “One rule for us, no rules for them” “And if you’re poor, you’re not invited”.
Tom’s final encore song Leave A Light On takes us back to his emotive best with its poignant lyrics about a friend who was struggling with addiction. His passionate delivery is spine tingling, with phones held along for a final singalong, and lights from KOKO’s mammoth glitter ball (Europe’s largest no less!) filling the beautiful venue. With the crowd blinking in the lights, they are mesmerised by his voice and the feeling that sometimes the nice guy does finish first.
