February 20 2014
Pictures by David Baird
There is a line in Storm Passes
Away, the final track on Jake Bugg's second album, Shangri La, that sums up
what a lot of us have been thinking.
"They keep telling me that
I'm older than I'm supposed to be," sings the 19-year-old, stood in front
of 9,000 people in the city's largest venue, his latest achievement in a two
year career that includes two hit albums, tours with Noel Gallagher (a mate who
he texts music queries to), a show with the Stone Roses, another with the
Rolling Stones, US TV appearances, a worldwide fan base as far as Japan and
South America, award nominations, a million record sales... and then some.
It's hard to believe he is
still a teenager, from Clifton, who four years ago was playing open mic nights
for free at the Maze and the Rescue Rooms.
After tonight's gig Wollaton
actress Vicky McClure, currently starring in the BBC drama Line of Duty, who
appeared in Jake's video for Two Fingers, admitted she was mouth agape for much
of it. "He was incredible. I can't believe how good he was up there on
that stage. And so young..."
That older-than-his-years
songwriting attracts the broadest fan base I've seen at any gig. There are kids
here, some as young as six. One mum at the bar said her three-year-old is a big
fan and sings along to the words of his songs in the car. One imagines she
skips past Two Fingers on the CD player - a toddler singing "skin up a fat
one" at nursery wouldn't go down well.
There are the Mod cropped
middle-aged blokes who miss Oasis. And even granddads who just appreciate
classic songwriting that they first fell in love with during the Sixties.
Jake's music is drawn from that
decade's folk, psychedelia, garage rock and pop but also the Seventies for
country and even punk.
But it's back further still for
the intro music, an old blues number accompanying the dimmed lights before he
appears with a four-piece band and rips into Shangri La's opening track There's
A Beast Inside And We All Feed It, before treating the crowd to their first
singalong; Trouble Town, the early single about growing up in "speedbump
city".
The lights from a sea of phones
illuminate the thousands standing on the arena floor, who sing every word to
Seen It All, another track from his million-selling self-titled debut.
He's in black, of course, but
it's a suit jacket rather than leather, maybe smartening up because mum, dad
and grandparents are there.
He does country rocker Me And
You then another homegrown anthem, Two Fingers, about his escape from a
Nottingham council estate.
No-one begrudges that. The boy
done good.
It's half-an-hour before the
acoustic is replaced by one of his two £20k vintage electric guitars, as the
jacket comes off to reveal the uniform Fred Perry shirt, collars up.
Messed Up Kids, Kingpin, Slumville
Sunrise, Taste It, What Doesn't Kill You... they're the rockier side of Jake,
prompting a spray of beer and old school moshing in the middle of the floor.
But then he sedates with the
tender Broken, the highlight for many of his debut.
Like his heroes Bob Dylan and
Neil Young, Bugg says little on stage. He never has. He isn't a talker, a
showman, an extrovert... just a musician. But he knows this is special.
"Thank you for making this
night very special," he says, adding: "I never thought i'd get to play
here."
Apart from introducing the odd
songs and thanking us, it's all he says for the whole 80 minutes he's on stage.
Yes he's played to bigger
crowds; 17,000 saw him headline Splendour last summer. But this was a landmark
gig. Family and friends were in the crowd. He even had his cousin Scott Bugg's
band The Swiines open the show. They looked nervous, almost apologetic, but no
doubt lived up to little cousin's expectations, keeping the crowd busy with a
set of powerful Mod rock.
For the encore Jake stood alone
and delivered Song About Love, the new single that is Shangri La's answer to
Broken. But he was always going to end with an explosion and Lightning Bolt did
just that, the crowd at their liveliest.
As the band walked off, Jake
stayed to applaud those who'd supported him along the way, waving to every
corner of the vast arena and no doubt taking it all in.
Those of us who have been
following Nottingham's music scene for a decade or two know his success is
unprecedented. For Jake, well, he doesn't know anything else. When I spoke to
him last year as this gig was announced, he was dreading turning 20, as if time
was marching on. But when he does leave his teenage years behind next Friday,
what else is there left for him to achieve?
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