Hey Skwad!
So an artist I've really been vibing with lately is Stephen Sanchez, whose single Until I Found You blew up on TikTok during COVID-19 and skyrocketed him to international fame, providing him with a fanbase demanding a whole record of his hopelessly romantic, late 50's/early 60's, doo-wop-sounding crooners and occasionally rockabilly-esque jivers. And on September 22nd, 2023, we got it. Angel Face dropped, peaking at 90 in Sanchez's home country's US charts, 64 here in the UK. but most surprisingly at 23 and 20 in Australia and New Zealand respectively!
With its standard 13 tracks, the 'loose' concept album follows a fictionalised version of Sanchez from a previous life, named 'The Troubadour Sanchez', who rose to fame after his smash-hit love balled, Until I Found You, broke the charts in 1958, falls in love with Evangeline, a gangster(Hunter)'s girlfriend. They run away together, leading The Troubadour to his untimely death at the hands of Hunter in 1964. The Troubadour's works were sadly lost to time, until now... When a kindly record company released all his hits as one collective body of work posthumously under the title Angel Face.
If put into chronological order, the record can be split in two: with the songs Something About Her, I Need You Most Of All, Until I Found You, Shake, No One Knows and Caught In A Blue recalling the events of 1958 and Evangeline, Only Girl, High, Doesn't Do Me Any Good, Be More, Death Of The Troubadour and Send My Heart With A Kiss summarising what occurred in 1964.
Elvis Presley taught me how to move, Frank Sinatra taught me how to love, and Roy Orbison taught me how to sing ~ Sanchez's influences
Taking note from artists like Lord Huron, Elvis Presley, Elton John, Frank Sinatra, Nat King Cole, The Platters, The Ink Spots, The Mills Brothers, Noah Kahan, Paul Anka, and Roy Orbison, his fans have been captured by the kitschy, 'old-skool' transitions and captions, grainy, out-of-focus wide aspect ratios and emphasis on an epic, grand, timeless love and an old Hollywood glamour (complete with an orchestral score and dramatic red stage curtains) aesthetic that transported them to somehow, somewhere in 1964...
The Tour
Understandably, fans were eager to see the Southern gentleman's charm live on tour, which was split into 3 parts:
North America: Stephen Sanchez Live in Person (October-December 2023)
Europe: The Troubadour Takes Europe (February 2024)
Australia: The Thunder Hits Down Under (April-May 2024)
But with the character of The Troubador Sanchez being dead for (at the time of writing) nearly 60 years, how exactly would this translate to the stage? After leaving exceptionally late and getting Maccies en route and with tickets going for £27 odd, that's what Gemma and I travelled to Bristol's SWX Theatre for the opening night of the European leg of the tour to find out!
The concert began at 7 pm, when the supporting act for the tour's second leg, John Vincent III, performed seven songs from his two most recent records; Songs For The Canyon (2023) and Songs from the Valley (2019). Afterwards, a medley of Elvis' Angel/Bobby Helms' My Special Angel/The Fleetwoods' Earth Angel plays and a booming voice fills the concert hall:
Ladies and Gentlemen, the tale you're about to hear is one that happened a long, long time ago. The characters in the story are no longer with us, but they live on as apparitions haunting these very rooms to share their never-ending tale of woe… This is the story of Angel Face. Sit back, relax, you’re listening to the WWLB Radio, now playing 'The Troubadour Sanchez'...
Before The Troubadour Sanchez and The Moon Crests hit the stage to thunderous applause and female clamouring, the likes of which only rivalled by Elvis himself.
With the first few opening numbers in the bag and every woman left wanting to give anything to be Evangeline or better yet, Sanchez's next muse, The Troubadour then informs the audience who may be unfamiliar with the plotline of the record:
Now, listen here folks... Our story begins 59 years long years ago at a club called The Angel... Â And it was there that a young buck Troubadour would play a couple shows. And that very club was owned by a no good, rotten Mob Boss by the name of "Hunter". And it was there that young Troubadour would meet Hunter's angel-faced gal... Evangeline. Drawn by forbidden love, the pair would spark up a secret romance that would land the two souls in, well... hot water. But before the hot water folks, we'd like to play a little number called No One Knows...
After performing some slower numbers (in some of which, I swear to god he looked right at me, AHHHH!!), our modern 'Elvis the Pelvis' picks up the energy with their current single High, before introducing my favourite track off of Angel Face, a Jerry Lee Lewis-inspired song;
Well, this next one, we really, really enjoy playing it. I really enjoy singing it... and we enjoy it when you move to it, when you Shake to it!
In the immortal words of Gemma: "Funky cowboy dude's got moves" (not to mention the ladies wrapped around his finger!). As an aside, I'm insanely jealous of the black and cream Western yoke shirt Sanchez decided to wear and I'm so glad that's the outfit we got to see him in (as I personally just prefer it to some of 60's Elvis-inspired suits with a pussy bow blouse he occasionally wears).
Moving toward the end of the setlist, Sanchez and the gang perform the record's closing tracks: Death Of The Troubadour (which, if you're not picturing a Western film in your head whilst listening to this, you're doing it wrong - sorry, I don't make the rules!) and Send My Heart With a Kiss, before performing some acoustic covers of Black Pumas' Colors and a song from his debut EP, What Was, Not Now entitled The Pool. The Troubadour Takes Europe Tour then comes full circle as it ends, as expected, with where Sanchez's career truly began, an encore performance of Untll I Found You, in which I was insanely delusional and thought he blew me, specifically, a kiss rather than a kiss in that section of the audience's general direction.
Overall, Gemma and I loved the concert and had a great time exploring Bristol, wandering down dark alleys and cobblestone streets in vintage dresses, spinning in our highest heels! Gemma even bought the CD (which we obviously played the whole way home whilst drinking Coca-Cola for ultimate 50's vibes - although the eco-friendly paper straw was not built to last and ended up looking like a cigarette once one end was covered in my red lipstick, adding to the Evangeline-inspired, femme fatale, Lana Del Rey-esque Mob boss's girlfriend aesthetic I had going on), which enclosed a special message from Stephen himself:
To the lovers, the poets, and those who dream, thank you. Your love, your words, and your dreams kept mine alive. Love, S
Setlist & Vlog!
To give you the full concert experience, I've attached a concert vlog of snippets of the Tour and a Spotify playlist of the full setlist, including supporting acts - it'll be like you were right there with me!
I've got a couple more upcoming concerts that Gemma, Sophie and I'll be attending this year (Olivia Rodrigo's GUTS World Tour in May and Taylor Swift's The Eras Tour in June), so if you'd like more posts like this do let me know!
I hope if nothing else, this latest instalment from me has given you a few more artists to check out or simply another LP to add to your discography (oh no, whatever will we do!)!