lo-fi noise makers: Frank Turner

Frank Turner is a English folk-punk singer/songwriter. He, however, began as the singer of the Post-Hardcore band, Million Dead. In 2005, he started his acoustic-based solo career that, in England, was something that caught on very fast. As a few years passed, he became so popular in England that when the Olympics were in London in 2012, Frank played at the opening ceremonies.

In America it was more of a word of mouth thing, finding out about Frank and his fun and talented songwriting and showmanship. In 2012, he released "Last Minutes And Lost Evenings" which is a compilation of songs from his earlier albums. In 2013, he released "Tape Deck Heart" Both of these CD's opened the eyes in America a little more and soon he was playing everywhere in America and the rest of the world. Hell, I even saw him play on the Ellen Show.

Patty (my wife) and I have seen Frank a more then few times and have really enjoyed the atmosphere of every one of his shows. We've both seen and heard thousands of bands and heard lots of music but, at a Frank Turner show, the vibe is like no other I have felt. His audience, at the shows I've been to, has a widely distributed age group. I've seen everything from kids that are 10 years old to 70 year olds, all singing along to the songs. I urge you to listen to more of his music and I think this show may encourage it on what was one of the greatest nights of music I've been a part of.

One thing I was always jealous about Frank Turner being big in England, was the stories and videos I saw of him playing acoustic shows in small pubs somewhere in England. Everyone seemed to join in to making every song a sing-a-long, drinking pints of beer at the bar. Well, I guess if you dream enough, some of the craziest things can really happen.

After having a long day at work, I got home and decided to have a few beers, four tall boy Heinekens to be exact, and to listen to some music for a couple of hours . Patty had just gotten home around 9:30 P.M. after a long day at work and a few hours of volunteer work under her belt, a long and tiring 14 hour day at that point for her; it was time for her to relax and catch up with our daughter. About 30 minutes, later I came back to see what she was doing and I picked up her phone and for some reason it vibrated. I'm not sure how her phone works so I gave it to her and told her, "I'm not sure what I did, but it vibrated." She said that I had turned it on when I picked it up. After the phone loaded, she decided to check Twitter. Next thing I hear is "Oh, shit, Frank Turner is at the Gingerman and doing a free show - you just have to show up." My reaction..."What??!!! Frank Turner is doing a free show now!!! At The Gigerman!! What??! We gotta go!! We gotta go !!!" It's about 10:15 on a Thursday night and we both have to work the next day. The other part of the story is Gaslight Anthem and Cory Branan were playing at the Aragon Ballroom on this night as well, which is a show we wanted to go to, but we both got off of work too late. Alkaline Trio was also playing a four night extravaganza at completely sold out shows, which I also wanted to attend but could not.

The Gingerman or Gman Tavern is located on Clark Street in Chicago. It's in Wrigleyville; well, it's just a few short blocks to the park. It's also just a few doors down from the famous Metro. I think it might hold, at most, 150 people. We got there in less then 30 minutes, lucked out once more with a parking spot directly across the street from the Metro. The line to get in was short, but it was only a 2-out, 2-in kind of thing because the place was packed to begin with. So the question was, are we going to get in? Shortly that was answered with a gleeful YES and we headed to the bar to get a drink from Katie who, we would find out later, had a little something to do with the show. So, from a tweet that happened about an 1-1/2 hour earlier, we were now standing in a bar, with drinks in our hands, on a Thursday night, at midnight and what happened next was a night full of fulfilled dreams, extreme pleasure in the joy of music and one of, if not the greatest nights of music, drinking and singing with a group of people that we've ever had the pleasure to enjoy.