FRANK TURNER, Against Me!, Emily Barker @Academy Birmingham 24/11/11

When did it happen? Exactly when did the lead singer of hardcore punk band Million Dead go mainstream? The answer is around the time he strapped on an acoustic guitar and stopped screaming.

Because that’s exactly what Frank Turner did and my how the public responded, and this tour seems to be the culmination of that stratospheric rise. Its sold out, naturally, just like pretty much every other show he has played recently (the last night of the tour is at Wembley Arena) and whilst there are lots of hysterical (and I use the word advisedly) kids about, there are plenty of older people too, all of whom seem to think that Frank is something of a god.

Whichever way you look at it, its not a bad turnout for a bloke RTM first came across when he was supporting the Gaslight Anthem at the old Academy 2 just shy of three years ago.

He seems to have handpicked the bill too, appearing with opening act Emily Barker and The Red Clay Halo to sing a song in their set. Their brand of singer/songwriter stuff, coming on like The Be Good Tanyas playing a load of songs by The Waifs isn’t to my tastes, but they do ok.

It’s difficult to know how Against Me! Will be received. The Florida punks are easily the heaviest thing on the bill (Turner later calls them “the best Punk Band on the planet” – and his affection seems genuine as he stands watching their set from the sound desk.) In the event they carry about half of the crowd with them. They punks of the Green Day/Dropkick Murphy’s school, rather than coming from a UK Subs type background, singing catchy songs with titles like “I was a Teenage Anarchist” and “Re-inventing Axl Rose.”

              

They don’t have much of a stage presence, never speaking to the crowd or introducing any songs, but to be fair they aren’t bad at all.

Which brings us to Frank Turner and his band The Sleeping Souls. Strolling out on stage dressed in matching white shirts and jeans and playing “Eulogy” it really becomes clear that Turner is taking on great importance for this generation. 3000 people are yelling every word of every song, with the nine he plays from new album “England Keep My Bones” being greeting with almost astonishing fervour.

His message is essentially a positive one too. Namely that we can all do what he’s doing and that music is force for good that makes us all equal. As mission statements go its not a bad one.

He has a collection of fine songs too and the band set up helps turn them into something different – “Long Live The Queen”, a song about the death of a friend, becomes a tale of defiance, “Love Ire And Song” is vitriolic critique of phony protest and “Glory Hallelujah” Turner’s hymn to atheism is spat out with real feeling.

He’s confident enough to play two new songs “Polaroid Pictures” and “Cowboy Chords” and pay homage to Freddie Mercury wish a cover of Queen’s “Somebody To Love”, before appropriately ending an uplifting 90 minutes with “The Ballad of Me and My Friends” and a mass sing-a-long of “Photosynthesis.”

It caps an excellent and entertaining evening, but for my money – and despite all his success – Turner isn’t anywhere as near as good as Billy Bragg. He just sells more records.