Thursday 23rd July 2015
Written by Anna McMillan
However, this didn’t stop the singer songwriter from continuing his musical journey as he began his first ever UK tour this month, taking to the stage at the 02 Academy in Newcastle on Thursday night for his penultimate night of his Laid Bare tour.
Supporting him on tour was Chris Bourne, little brother to Busted’s James Bourne and Concept, a 5 piece boyband setting the stage for a male dominated night of music which was fitting as the room was packed out with female fans of all ages.
With drinks in hand the noisy crowd welcomed Chris on stage as he opened the show for Jake. Since leaving his former band Hollywood Ending, Bourne has opted for an electro sound as he began his set with ‘If I Could Just Say Hey,’ an upbeat, techno tune with a hint of auto tune effects. Unconventional but affective as it got the large crowd dancing, warming up for the rest of the show. As cheesy as the song and lyrics were, you find yourself singing along to it hours later, a bit like Rebecca Black and Friday. Well done to him though for only singing original songs. Most new and upcoming artists can only connect with the crowds by singing covers but Bourne gathered a lot of crowd participation with his techno sound.
Concept brought their boyband good looks and covers to the stage by starting their set with ‘Uptown Funk’ gearing the crowd up with the sound of Bruno Mars. They even added a bit of Beyoncé’s ‘XO’, bringing the charts to the stage. However they brought more than pretty faces to their set as they sang one of their own songs called ‘Young and Rebellious.’ The original song had a fun loving vibe as it was an upbeat, summer anthem track with high tempo moves as the drunken crowd members cheered and danced along to the music. The boys even got everyone to join in with singing by telling the crowd ‘we say oh, you say oh,’ causing the fans to erupt in bad singing. Their set hyped up the fans for the arrival of Jake.
Quickenden opened his set with a track off his debut ep ‘Obsession’, a dance track which is set to be released next month. The crowds responded well to the new sound as the move from slow, soulful ballads Jake used to sing on the show to please the judges, was a welcome change for the singer songwriter.
Jake is one of the few singers to come out of X Factor, untainted by the machine that is Simon Cowell. We’re used to watching ex contestants turn into manufactured popstars with cheesy, cliché lyrics about love who are still holding onto their 5 minutes of fame status. Luckily Jake didn’t conform to the machine by writing his own songs about his life and the journey he began since being on the show. All he needed on stage was himself and his guitar, no gimmicks or band just his soulful voice.
He even wrote a song called ‘Make It My Own’ about Nicole Scherzinger not putting him through to the lives in 2012 saying, ‘I wrote this song after Nicole didn’t put me through and it’s about not letting anyone get in the way of doing what you love, the bitch.’ That got the crowd cheering. His Ed Sheeran style rap was about his setbacks in life but not giving up on his dreams.
He even made one nervous fans dreams come true when he invited her up on stage for him to sing another original – ‘Mile High.’ Granted, the melodic rap about the girl’s love controlling him mentally and sexually probably wasn’t the best song for him to sing to a crying and shaking fan. Although, the bear hug she received after probably did cheer her up.
The crowd fell silent when Jake announced he was going to perform an original song which was close to his heart called ‘Blindfold’. He wrote the song after his little brother died not long after his first appearance on X Factor from a brain tumour. Just before his death, Jake’s brother got married to his college sweetheart so he wrote her the song for her memory of him. Well there wasn’t a dry eye in sight when he began singing the song with such passion on his face. ‘Little things took over your mind… Why did I have to leave you? Baby you could look up to the sky.’ The heart felt lyrics had the fans sobbing around me.
Jake went on to show his gratitude for his most watched Youtube video of his cover of ‘Say Something,’ which he sang on The X Factor, racking up almost 14 million views. His disbelief in how many people listen to his music was humbling, ‘I am just a guy doing what I love.’ Taking the crowd back to 2012 when we first heard the singer perform the ballad, Quickenden belted out the lyrics with a beautiful range of falsetto. There were plenty of goose bump conjuring moments as he allowed the crowd to sing the song back to him. It was a proud moment for most fans as they have seen how far the singer has come since his first appearance on the show.
Ending the night with his debut single ‘I Want You,’ a dance track which transported me to the clubs of Ibiza, Quickenden finished on a high. The cheeky Bolton boy also decided to add to the dance club feel by soaking the fans with numerous bottles of water he found on the stage. It was safe to say fans left the gig refreshed and wet.