![\"British](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/11\/263070f469f55c30c22620ccae562e0cca2f6ec7.jpg\")
Camera IconBritish singer songwriter Sam Fender. Credit: Charlotte Patmore\/Charlotte Patmore<\/p>\nSam Fender didn\u2019t just draw a crowd in Perth, he summoned what felt like the city\u2019s entire expat population.<\/p>\n
Kings Park was packed with Geordies, Brits and homesick northerners who came to hear a familiar voice on Friday night, belting every word of Fender\u2019s songs back to him with a volume usually reserved for football stands.<\/p>\n
And it didn\u2019t go unnoticed.<\/p>\n
\u201cAlright Perth, I think this might be the best crowd I\u2019ve had in the whole of Australia,\u201d Fender said before asking if there were \u201cany Aussies in the crowd\u201d.<\/p>\n
The night carried a heavier emotional weight than his previous performances, with Fender revealing it was not only the final show of his People Watching tour \u2014 which he started in December 2024 \u2014 but his final gig for a while as he heads home to work on a new album.<\/p>\n
Camera IconBritish singer songwriter Sam Fender. Credit: Charlotte Patmore\/Charlotte Patmore<\/p>\n
\u201cIt didn\u2019t dawn on us until about five minutes before we came out… we thought this could be a year (until we are doing concerts again),\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
Emotion aside, the 31-year-old delivered a high-energy set with sharp vocals, a tight band, and a mid-show surprise when he hauled a fan he had met outside his hotel, a man named Will, on stage to play guitar during Borders.<\/p>\n
Fender\u2019s voice held strong across the night, though there were moments when his backing vocalist pushed slightly ahead in the mix.<\/p>\n
The venue, which was split between seated ticket-holders and mosh, stayed orderly until one song forced those seated to their feet.<\/p>\n
Seventeen Going Under \u2014 his biggest song with more than 316 million Spotify streams \u2014 prompted the biggest reaction of the night, with the crowd dancing and singing along to every word.<\/p>\n
But the night wasn\u2019t flawless.<\/p>\n
A glaring absence left fans with one question as they filed out of the venue.<\/p>\n
Fender\u2019s latest hit Rein Me In \u2014 a collaboration with well-known artist Olivia Dean \u2014 was a noticeable omission from the setlist.<\/p>\n
It didn\u2019t derail an otherwise impressive performance, but it did leave the diehards asking the same question on the way out: why skip it?<\/p>\n
The gig was complete with early performances from Esha Tewari and Holly Humberstone who got the crowd hyped up as support acts before Fender took the stage.<\/p>\n
Humberstone also joined Fender on stage for one of his final song\u2019s of the night.<\/p>\n
The verdict… a solid 4 out of 5 stars (a point lost for no live version of Rein Me In)<\/p>\n
SET LIST:Angel in LothianWill We Talk?Getting StartedArm\u2019s LengthWild Long LieThe BordersCrumbling EmpirePeople WatchingTalk To YouGet You DownHowdon Aldi Death QueueSpit of YouSeventeen Going UnderEncore<\/p>\n
14. The Dying Light<\/p>\n
15. Something Heavy<\/p>\n
16. Hypersonic Missiles<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Sam Fender didn\u2019t just draw a crowd in Perth, he summoned what felt like the city\u2019s entire expat…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":316296,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[64,63,134,136,46,45],"class_list":{"0":"post-316295","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-entertainment","8":"tag-au","9":"tag-australia","10":"tag-entertainment","11":"tag-music","12":"tag-perth","13":"tag-wa-news"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/316295","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=316295"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/316295\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/316296"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=316295"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=316295"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=316295"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}