Dean, Dean, DEAN or “DEANO” for some of the enthusiastic London fans chanting his name as he came up on stage to which Dean responded, “What’s up London!”. The gig was already on an upward trajectory before Dean started his set with 7 Minutes from his first album, A Place We Knew.
Dean, backed by a band, went on to play Stay Awake, Hurtless and Memories but not before warning the crowd he’ll be playing few new songs next, and that’s what we got… He performed All Your Lies, Empire, All I Ever Wanted and The Last Bit of Us. The latter is out on Friday and Dean said it was about saying goodbye to an ex and the last moment you hug before knowing you’ll never see each other again. A beautiful and well written song that went from being quite soft to hard hitting with Dean’s great vocals and backing band.
The band left the stage allowing Dean to perform solo renditions of Half A Man on the keys before jumping onto his acoustic guitar to play To Have You Today.
The crowd also got to witness something you don’t get to see every day at a gig… A medley, yes you read right, Dean back with the band on stage played A Place We Knew/Need You Now/All For You and it was beautifully done with rapturous applause from the crowd. To my surprise, Dean then covered Taylor Swift’s Cruel Summer. I’d love to hear why Dean chose to cover this song but nonetheless, it went down a treat and the crowd sang along as if it was his own song. Wow!
The night ended with two of Dean’s most popular and probably most streamed songs, Be Alright and Waves.
Tonight, Dean was sometimes enthusiastically drowned out by his adoring fans as if they had listened to his ballads a thousand times over. I can only imagine, what a sing-a-long marathon his soon to be sold out show at Wembley Arena in February 2025 will be.
