The show started with singer-songwriter Annika Bennet performing some of her songs. She is currently supporting him on his tour through the UK before joining Role Model for his EU tour. Annika played a couple of songs from her new album 'Live From Mother Earth', as well as an unreleased song and, as a personal highlight of mine, she played a cover of ABBA‘s 'Dancing Queen'.
After Annika finished her set, Bradley quickly took the stage. With only five solo songs so far, I did not know what to expect from his show but I can honestly say that I was beyond pleasantly surprised. I did hope to see him perform one or two Vamps songs, which didn’t happen. But I can also understand and respect him for this decision as it seems that he is trying to establish a solo career outside of the band.
For his song 'Daisies', when Bradley sang “I’ve been picking daisies”, the audience threw plastic daisies on the stage, which was a lovely touch. Overall, the fan interactions did not come too short during his concert. I always love when artists take their time to interact with fans during shows rather than just playing song after song after song, feeling like they’re just trying to get through it. He was even gifted a Newcastle United FC jersey, which he seemed to appreciate a lot.
One part of the show I was prepared for (through seeing videos of it on TikTok) was one of the covers he performed. When I turned to my friend and said “I think he’s going to play 'Hot to Go'”, she laughed, assuming I was recreating the meme. The look on her face when he then actually started playing Chappell Roan‘s 'Hot to Go' was priceless, to say the least. It was also very exciting to experience the entire audience to sing along and to the famous dance. Another song he covered was Fleetwood Mac‘s 'Dreams', with just his acoustic guitar and his band‘s harmonies. It was truly beautiful.
Bradley is currently on tour to promote his upcoming album, entitled 'The Panic Years'. As he explained it, 'The Panic Years' is about being in your 20s and feeling lost, feeling like you have to find out who you are and what you want in life. As a very much clueless-about-life-25-year-old, this resonates with me and I truly cannot wait for the album to be released in February 2025. What’s even more exciting is that he already announced a UK Tour for 2025. So if you did not get the chance to see him this time around, you don’t want to miss out when he is in Newcastle next year performing all the songs from his album.
Bradley Simpson's debut solo album, 'The Panic Years' will be released on 28 February 2025.
