A Night To Remember: Tom Grennan @ The Brighton Centre

Good afternoon! I hope you are all well and enjoying the blogs!

After Timon's Week - or well, "adventures" from Wednesday to Friday - I had a little bit of an "awkward" end to the week.

Whilst I had no plans or hotel booked for Saturday (Friday to Saturday), I did have a concert booked on Sunday.

Only being one day, I didn't see the point of only going back to the Isle Of Wight for just Saturday and then re-crossing on Sunday.

So I stayed in Essex on Saturday and hung out with my friends and stayed the night (and saw another friend whilst down there).

At about 3pm or so on Sunday, I said my goodbyes and headed out to Brighton.

Admittedly, I left everything a little bit too late. The fact I had to park, walk to my accomodation, drop my bags and then walk to the venue sort of slipped my mind - and by the time I arrived at the venue, the gates were only just opening.

Given the size of the queue, I suppose it was perfect timing as I by the time I got to the back, the queue already started to move.

Whilst I have a moment of calm, my hotel for the night was the Kipps Hotel in Brighton and was a bit of a faff to get into, for multiple reasons.

The vital information (code to get in etc.) was lost in early emails/messages/communication - which I lost upon arriving - I then didn't realise that each room key was inside/next to the door - and the dial-safes were an absolute faff to get into requiring quite some effort to unlock/open the safe door.

Saying this, the room was very nice.

Eventually, I got in, dropped my bags and then fast walked to the venue ("The Brighton Centre").

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Since making my concert debut in 2021, I've been to a number of concerts and venues - and having booked seats - this instantly sealed a "Top 5" Concert - and then the concert began.

Both the support acts were highly skilled, thoroughly enjoyable and complemented Tom's music genre/style.

Frankie Beetlestone kicked things off, followed by Gracey, followed by Tom himself.

Both Frankie and Gracey were absolutely incredibly - after the concert I'd even save multiple of both artists songs to my spotify playlist - and still listen to them to this day.

As mentioned, I had been to a concert of Tom's back in 2021, when he was still very much "up and coming" - and two years later, with a bigger budget and bigger venue at his disposal, he absolutely smashed it out of the park and I absolutely had the time of my life.

Sure, it would have been nice to have a high quality camera to record Tom in crisp detail, but the memory of that concert won't be forgotten in a long time!

Without a doubt, the most exciting part of the concert was when a confetti gun slightly dislodged a light fixture and the concert had to have a 10 minute break whilst they fixed it.

Another highlight of the concert was when Tom sung a duet with one of his backing-vocalists - and it was really nice for her to get that much recognition for her hard work.

Anyway, in order, he sang:

1. If Only

2. Sober

3. Royal Highness

4. Barbed Wired

(a few songs from his upcoming album), then:

- This Is The Place

- Amen

"Hold Your Hand" (song from upcoming album)

- Don't Break The Heart

"Head Up" (song from upcoming album)

- All These Nights

- Here (Song which broke the lighting)

- Let's Go Home Together (Ft. Angel, backing vocalist)

-Found What I've Been Looking For

- Not Over Yet (Ft. Gracey)

- Remind Me

- You Are Not Alone

- A Little Bit Of Love

And just as quickly as it began, Tom sang his last song, Sweet Caroline played and it was all over - quite possibly one of the best nights of my life - locked as a core memory.

At first, I was pretty adamant that I'd take an Uber home - but strength always comes in numbers - and for a good portion of the walk, I was following the masses, before peeling off with a smaller group, before shortly being alone and half-way to the hotel - the hotel being on a busy main-road, and by the time the taxi would have arrived, I could have made it to the hotel by foot.

Having not eaten, I decided to order food.

JustEat came very quickly - quicker than I expected - and it was then that I realised that I was locked in my room - so I awkwardly had to tell my JustEat driver to hold fire - and wait for security to come.

Given the time (and the fact it wasn't a well-known hotel - just below me were normal residents) they came incredibly quickly.

What had happened was the metal bit that slides across the door (opens/closes it) got dislodged/wonky and wouldn't slide far enough to clear the gap in the door.

So even though I pulled the handle the full way down, the metal bit was still blocking the bit locking the door - I don't know how else to describe it.

Eventually, I passed the keys under the door and they were able to unlock the door from the outside, and my poor pizza guy could deliver my pizza and get on with his night.

Following this, I would have a shower which didn't know WHAT temperature it wanted to be, before I nodded off to sleep.