On a mild spring night the Melbourne city punters made their way to the Forum Theatre to witness Sam Newton Battenberg Faulkner aka Newton Faulkner play. Born in Surrey, England, the twenty-three year old is well known for his guitar techniques which see him not only use the guitar strings, but playfully tap the guitars’ body to produce his percussive backing – a skill that he has mastered and which he delightfully plays to the enchanted crowd.
The booths inside the theatre quickly fill up and the floor area has many people vying for front row. Lights on and Rosie Henshaw enters the stage and sits down to play what looks like a sitar and the Eastern music fills the room as she carefully plucks this beautiful instrument. Old Man River aka Ohad Rein joins her and they sing Sunshine. The acoustic guitar and sitar do justice to Sunshine and their voices are melodic as well as soft and tonight they sing with passion and freedom. We’re hearing new tunes from Old Man River during the set, and Ohad is rather entertaining as he tries to get reactions from the crowd between songs. Old Man River’s music is for a laid back night out for those who want to listen to some decent, beautiful and quirky tunes over a few brews. A short set from the Sydney band and the crowd was hearty with their applause.
Lights dim and crowd erupts with enthusiastic applause and Newton Faulkner enters with guitar in hand and he roars hello to the attentive crowd. To The Light starts the set, full of melodic pop and a beat played by tapping the guitar’s body, he moves quickly into the next song I Need Something which takes us through more guitar twists and the crowd sings along to the music whilst Newton displays passion and a strong live voice. Two spotlights shine on Newton and he likes to chat whilst the crowd lap up his playful banter. The reason for his talking with the crowd is due to the fact that he works with specially tuned guitars during his set and instead of tuning the same guitar for each song (which would allow for even more talking whilst he would tune), he now has a number of guitars already tuned ready for each song – seems the guitar tech would earn his money!. Now Newton plays his favourite song off his album Feels Like Home which is a slower song and during the song the screen behind him glows alight with colours reflecting the mood of the song.
A couple of years ago Newton was asked to play on a radio show, so he had to get some material together only to find out they wanted him to play a cover, so we hear You Spin me Right Round, a Dead or Alive cover, which he was told never to play live again, but it seems to have worked tonight in a humorous way! The cover of Massive Attack’s Teardrops has the room swaying again. Tonight’s stage set isn’t very glossy, a disco ball in the centre and some colour changes on the screen behind him and that’s all, but who really needs to light the stage up with decoration when we have a man who is quite the comedian and lights up the stage all in his own doing.
Just when I think he’ll be playing the entire set alone, the stage is joined by a drummer and bassist. People Should Smile More inducts some groovy bass lines with the drummer racking up the beats, She’s Got The Time_ is about travelling with his brother and acting weird, this song shows off Newton’s vocals strongly as well as incorporating some comedy banter into the song. Seeing Newton is really going to a half comic act and half a music gig.
A percussion beat starts the song UFO which talks about anal probes…hmmm…then a new song For Gods Sake; a beautiful, heartfelt song, and hopefully one that will be on the next album. As he starts Straight Towards The Sun with his deep vocals I watch his fingers and listen to the sound he creates which make it hard to believe its all coming from the same instrument. The mood for this song is set with magical red lights and takes us through a journey to sing along to. Dream Catch Me is his biggest hit and it has an acoustic and haunting melody which whips the crowd into frenzy and then, before the crowd can settle we’ve given another new song called Take It which again, needs to be included on the next album. A few more tunes then Newton tells us that he’ll pretend to go off stage and come back, so no show pausing tonight, then he sings Lullaby and another cover – Bohemian Rhapsody closes the gig. Out come the karaoke drunken boys and girls who sing along to the song and Newton gives his guitar a work out.
