If Sam Fender’s debut album, 2019’s “Hypersonic Missiles”, introduced a smart, street-wise British songwriter with a penchant for euphoric, hard-hitting guitar anthems, it was 2021’s peerless “Seventeen Going Under” that sent the Newcastle artist stratospheric. An acute observer, Fender turns the mirror not only on the streets he grew up walking, but on himself too. The record is a tough-talking but also tender account of Fender’s childhood, finding his feet in the North of England amongst all the complexities and anxieties that weighed so heavily on his shoulders. It’s also a coming of age story, marrying relatable family themes and broken friendships with devastatingly colossal choruses. “Seventeen Going Under” is also a record that has taken Sam right across the globe, playing to bigger rooms and wider stages, whilst reaping a clutch of awards too (BRITs, NMEs, Ivor Novellos, and a prestigious Mercury Prize nomination). Having headlined his first festivals in the UK in the Summer of 2022, and sold out all 45,000 tickets of his most recent headline performance in London, Sam Fender has inadvertently become one of Britain’s most celebrated and successful musicians of a generation.