Live Review: Fergus – 31st May 2022 – The Camden Club, London, UK

As the thunderstorms tore above London on Tuesday night, giving us further reason to wonder whether we will even get a summer this year, the best place you could have found yourself is either under a blanket watching telly at home or taking in some pretty damn good tunes in a warm venue somewhere around this big beautiful city that is London. We were fortunate to found ourselves in the latter; swaying along to the guitar strumming pleasures of rising singer-songwriter, Fergus who took over the recently opened maze like venue, The Camden Club.

Arriving at just shy of 8pm the venue was already very quickly filling up with friends, family, bloggers and fellow musical peers, as well as a growing fanbase of acoustic lovers for the London based musician’s album launch of debut LP, Love Upside Down which saw its release on May 27th.

Taking to the quaint but fully dressed stage at a little after 8.30pm, a warm response to the star of the night brought a beaming smile from the singer who dove headfirst into a 30 minute set of self penned tracks; showing the audience right from the get-go that he isn’t just a musician, but a developing storyteller with strong potential; gliding through opening number, Fight Forever.

Love Upside Down, the title track of the album which Fergus described as “two years in the making”, was a sugary number with a slight island feel to it; Fergus’ voice carrying a distinctive, falsetto tone to it while The Brink –  self described as one of his heaviest songs – fell a little flat but not at the fault of Fergus but the track being overwhelmed by the drums, which were perhaps a little too excitable for the nature of the event and the setting; Fergus’ vocals often being drowned out on this and several other numbers performed during the course of the first half of the showcase.

The best moments of the set came when his backing band took a more gentle approach to their backing of the singer. Album centrepiece, Flatline was the perfect example of this; Fergus starting the track off with a whispery vocal and casual strum of his blue electric guitar before his band members made a light entrance to the track allowing us to relish in the vocal talents of the rising star.

All I Dream provided the night with a number you could easily hear on mainstream radio. The tracks melody was catchy and the instrumentation perfectly balanced while Fergus swung between his lower range and falsetto with ease and more confidence than seen with previous numbers as he was clearly warming up to the spotlight.

Telling the audience comical anecdotes between tracks about life in lockdown, putting the album together and matters of the heart, Fergus offered us a nice performance of More Than I Deserve before closing the set with a sentimental story of his mother’s successful battle with cancer and finding the inspiration to finish Dear Heart; a touching and inspiring outro for the brief but celebratory launch of a musician that easily fits into the Newton Faulkner and Ed Sheeran market. While there is some refining to be done in these early days – as is the case with any new artists – there is a lot of potential here and from the sound of applause from those at the launch as the musician made his way through the set, I’m clearly not the only one who thinks so.

Setlist:
Fight Forever
If It’s Easier
The Brink
Flatline
All I Dream
More Than I Deserve
Dear Heart

Brendon Veevers

::: RenownedForSound.com’s Editor and Founder –
Interviewing and reviewing the best in new music and globally recognized artists is his passion.
Over the years he has been lucky enough to review thousands of music releases and concerts and interview artists ranging from top selling superstars like 27-time Grammy Award winner Alison Krauss, Boyz II Men, Roxette, Cyndi Lauper, Lisa Loeb and iconic Eagles front man/songwriter, Glenn Frey through to more recent successes including Newton Faulkner, Janelle Monae and Caro Emerald.
Brendon manages and coordinates the amazing team of writers on RenownedForSound.com who are based in the UK, the U.S and Australia.