When a pop band breaks up and you are one of the biggest in the world it is only natural that you go on and release solo albums. Some members debuts will be stronger then others and some will go down a storm and others will take 4 years to write and construct. Former one Directioner Louis Tomlinson has taken that amount of time to release his debut album, Walls. In that time he has released singles as well as dealing with a lot in his personal life, which I will not be discussing about here. When it was announced that he was going to be doing an acoustic session with question and answer section, I was intrigued to go.

I never really got into One Direction but I appreciated them as a band, whilst I couldn’t understand the phenomenon, I respected that they were as big as they were. It wasn’t until I saw them live in 2016 in Newcastle (because the tickets were cheap) that I experienced them first hand and full on. I was impressed how good they were live and that they did know how to put on a show. It also made me extremely aware of how loud their fans could scream.

Just like you expect, people were queuing over night to see Louis, however I don’t understand why they would because the venue at Kingston is so small and intimate that you can get a very good view wherever you stand. Also, being the core of Storm Ciara the night they camped, I think it wasn’t right they did. As you enter the venue you have to walk around a maze of dumped duvets which both to me seems a waste of time and a waste to that so many now have to be thrown away.

Credit: Bartolo Creations 

Four years is a long time for fans to wait for an album (and we will be looking at it closer in Off The Record this week) so it was only right that the fans were greeted with a question and answer session as well. The first part of the hour set was questions from the audience. Whilst I understand that fans want to get up, close and personal to their favourite star, I am not sure question and answers work in a gig environment. Whilst the ex-Directioner fans were screaming at everything that he said, the deafening screams came with the mention of Harry Styles or Niall Horan. There was also a big handful that were not paying attention and spoke amongst themselves.

There was some interesting answers and I have to say, I didn’t expect some of the questions that the audience asked and I applaud the intellectual ones that really went behind the music construction that were interesting to listen to the answers.

Credit: Bartolo Creations 

At 8:30pm the music part of the set arrived, the audience’s energy slightly changed to more upbeat and the songs went down a storm. A crowd favourite was the song with the same title as the album, Walls and the whole venue was alight with everyone singing the song word to word.

It does not surprise me that Louis Tomlinson is good live as he was very talented singer when I saw him perform with One Direction a few years back. Now he is the frontman of his own sound, it is interesting to watch and see if he can take the heat….and he can. Whilst it is still obvious that he is new to being the only individual on stage it is clear that he is going to have the power to stand his own when he goes on tour later this year. It may not be up to that standard yet and he still may act shy on stage but when it DOES come, it is going to be something special.

RATING: ***’ 3.5 STARS