Ex Six Going On Seven frontman goes it alone.
Opening for the Softcore Tour tonight is Joshua English, the heavily tattooed ex-Six Going On Seven front man turned singer songwriter from Oregon. He's on at about 6.30 and it's so early that the venue hasn't really begun to fill up and seems too big with the crowd huddled together at the back beyond the glare of the lights. Even so, and despite the fact that he's largely unknown in the U.K, his warm delivery and easy humour win those there over immediately and he easily owns the stage with just his guitar for company.
Most of Joshua's tunes tonight are from new album 'Trouble None' which is his debut solo full length. Like the other players on this tour, he plays melodic, pared down poppy tunes with honest, down to earth lyrics, unlike the others though, he infuses his songs with a heavy air of melancholy. The album is interesting and moody with some odd little quirks in the time signatures and instrumentation, but tonight because it's just him up there alone he sticks mainly to the more straight forward hook laden pop-rock tunes from it, like 'Go 'Head Heal Your Heart' and 'Table Wine' and most of them come with a story; like 'Little Betty' which is apparently about friend of his called, you guessed it: little Betty, who is in fact actually pretty big apparently, but of course, when he tells them he doesn't fail to make you smile.