Gig review: Tom Grennan at Millennium Square, Leeds

Few gigs have ever felt so keenly attuned to the football fortunes of a nation as the one Tom Grennan belatedly arrives to play at Leeds’s Millennium Square.

Headlining the latest night of Sounds of the City beneath the golden shadow of the Civic Hall’s towering owls, the Bedford chart favourite has been forced to delay his show as the country hangs on the twists and turns of a game half a continent away.

When he finally emerges, to the strains of the Fat Les terrace anti-classic Vindaloo, the relief that rolls off both him and his audience is physically palpable.

“We finally won a penalty shootout!” he roars, to lairy chants from the fringes of a sell-out crowd. Down the front, high-pitched screams greet him instead, buoyed by his bare biceps despite the late summer chill and an unfeasibly attractive everybloke charisma.

England’s gain is his own as much as anyone else; once a keenly promising footballer in his youth too, the singer-songwriter takes the white-knuckle air of sporting desperation-turned-jubilation hung valiantly behind him and turns victory from the spot over Switzerland at Euro 2024 into a celebration here, backed by a slickly consummate set of songs.

By Grennan’s own admission, this is a show close to the end of its shelf life; his upcoming fourth record, teased here in reference, looks set to shuffle up his running order.

But while plenty of the tracks trotted out hew close to the bread and butter of a mid-tempo pop-rock template, they are delivered with enough gusto to turn each into a beefy arms-aloft singalong, caught in snapshots by the TikTok generation in attendance.

An early medley of cuts, held up by opener If Only, sets the mood; How Does It Feel and Amen conjure requisite singalongs in a lusty, soaring key.

Even splatters of rain cannot deflate the mood, while the megawatt ballads that arrive offer skyscraper flourishes carried acapella by the crowd; Here, in particular, is a fine high. A compact quartet of collaborative dance hits register as a bass-shuddering megamix too, a handy reminder of Grennan’s low-key mastery of the euphoric clubland guest vocal.

It all ends with Little Bit of Love, that keening Radio 2-esque crossover hit likely to be a perennial staple of wedding receptions for generations to come. “It’s only going to get better from here,” the singer promises. Such confidence does not look unfounded.