John-Paul Mason on booking Sam Fender for a support King Tut’s in 2014

King Tut’s booker John-Paul Mason speaks about the first time Sam Fender played at the venue in 2014.

Transcript

00:00 When Sam Fender eventually headlined here I was away, I think I was in the States or something with the Twilight Sad.

00:06 And those are the times where you're like, "Ah, you see things happening here and you're like,

00:11 "I wish I could do both." But I love travelling America and it's my favourite thing so I was there.

00:19 But the first time that Sam Fender played here when I was here was one of my very early gigs.

00:24 I was shadowing, before you actually become a rep here you've got to shadow a rep to get the experience and everything else.

00:31 So I was shadowing a girl called Frances and the gig was a guy called Nick Mulvey.

00:37 And there was a tour support, a guy called Rhodes, and then the opener was Sam Fender.

00:42 So I'd set his rider up on the shelf as you come in the back door, so printed out on a bit of paper was Sam Fender.

00:51 And then he had his beers iced up and some soft drinks and some water.

00:54 And as soon as he walked in he went, "Oh, that's for me? Oh, that's cunny."

00:58 And then he was like, "Can I take a beer just now?" And I was like, "Yeah, yeah."

01:01 So he opened a beer and he was standing and talking to us in the office having a beer.

01:05 And he was just this really, really enthusiastic, lovely wee guy from Newcastle.

01:08 He'd got the train up himself, he was getting paid 50 quid or whatever it was just to be the support.

01:15 And he was so excited to be playing King Tut's.

01:18 And I walked him on stage and he walked on, nobody knew who he was.

01:22 And he played a half-hour set, which was really, really good.

01:26 I couldn't tell you what the songs were. I don't know if any of them became the big songs that he now is known for.

01:32 But he had a way about him with the crowd that despite nobody in the room knowing who he was,

01:39 he immediately got inside. He had good patter.

01:42 And that's always a good thing to have if you're a solo acoustic guy, when it can be a struggle to try and win over a crowd.

01:49 And his tunes were good as well. And I just thought, "Wow, there's something about him."

01:53 And then over the years, he's just sort of built his audience and his rise to fame.

02:00 I mean, seeing the footage of him doing those St. James' Park gigs was incredible.

02:06 Absolutely incredible. And I know his promoter, Steve Tilley.

02:10 Steve's worked with him since he was playing pubs and venues like this doing support.

02:15 And Steve's a mad, proud Geordie Newcastle fan.

02:20 So seeing a guy that he promotes playing in the stadium two nights in a row was obviously a huge deal for him.

02:27 So yeah, that was amazing.