Tom Odell at Fine Line Music Cafe, Minneapolis (14 Oct 2016)

Tom Odell Setlist

1. Still Getting Used to Being on My Own
2. I Know
3. Wrong Crowd
4. Concrete
5. Can’t Pretend
6. Sparrow
7. Heal
8. Behind the Rose
9. Constellations
10. Grow Old With Me
11. Hold Me
12. Here I Am
13. Another Love
    — Encore —
14. Till I Lost
15. Magnetised

Tour Dates

It’s No Bad Days on Tour for UK singer-songwriter Tom Odell, on the road supporting Wrong Crowd (RCA Records), his second full-length album that shows the young artist, has plenty more to show us.

The evening was opened by Ipswich, UK singer-songwriter Barns Courtney (not to be confused with Australian singer/guitarist Courtney Barnett) in support of his Hands EP (Virgin EMI Records).  We were gutted to have missed him (due to a friend’s wedding), but like everything we’ve heard up to this point, including ‘Fire’, which was featured in last year’s Burnt film, which starred Bradley Cooper.

Tom Odell and band took to the stage amongst minimal lightning and hazy fog, to begin their ninety-minute set with ‘Still Getting Used to Being on My Own’ from the new record, which features smart song structure in an Elton John way, and choral harmonics that echoed the best Queen ballads.

Odell, wearing a tan jacket with shorter hair than previous (though it could still cover his eyes), didn’t say too much between songs, instead letting the works themselves do the talking and they often showed flashes of brilliance for the young twenty-five year old songwriter.

‘I Know’ ached like mid-70’s Bowie, the title track of the new album slowly rose to crest like a sonic tsunami and ‘Concrete’ simmered like a tea kettle.  Songs of longing and heartache were plentiful, including the brooding ‘Can’t Pretend’, with only Odell’s voice against a slow bassline to end the song that was getting too serious, enough that he himself noticed near the finish and made light of things.

‘Heal’ sounded classic, with its lyric “Take my mind and take my pain, like an empty bottle takes the rain. and heal, heal, heal, heal” and a melody that would sound contemporary forty years ago… or forty years from now.

The rare campfire-sounding b-side track, ‘Behind the Rose’ lays claim to Odell’s own quote that “having your heart broken makes for good songs” and featured just Odell and bass player Max Goff, who Odell also called “ the fifth best harmonica player in Minneapolis” in his most humble Chris Martin voice.

‘Grow Old with Me’, the lead track from his 2013 debut, Long Way Down, would probably be played at every wedding in the US, if only more people on this side of the pond were familiar with it.  Guitarist Max Clilverd kept a rock edge on everything to not get too sentimental, like on the refrain of ‘Hold Me’.

The forlorn but no less mesmerizing ‘Another Love’ ended the main set, it’s “All my tears have been used up, on another love” lyrics hitting home with anyone trying to begin again after a significant breakup.

The two-song encore began with 2013’s defiant ‘Till I Lost’ and skipped the new ‘Daddy’ though it was posted on the setlist.  A percolating ‘Magentised’, perhaps his best overall song to date, ended the evening, stretched to eight minutes that found Odell standing atop his center piano to get the crowd to clap along.

And most of the crowd were happy to do so, though were somewhat lacking the collective energy a Friday night crowd should have had, at least in comparison to the rabid European festival crowds that we’ve seen respond to that song elsewhere.  A pocket of drunk and talking girls threatened the mood, though Odell was unfazed, as was most of the crowd, instead taken deeply enough into his compelling songs and heartfelt lyrics, to hardly notice.

Despite any of that, talent shone through this night, proving Tom Odell is a just small break away from US super stardom; to match or exceed his popularity rank elsewhere, and with his music, and true to his tour name, there are No Bad Days.