Jake Bugg

Jake Bugg
 launched into ‘Seen It All’, there was the feeling that the gig was yet to really get going, but there remained plenty of time. This was followed by the unquestionably Dylan-esque ‘The Ballad of Mr. Jones’, which gave Jake a chance to show off his talents on electric guitar: he certainly succeeded.
The pace of the gig then slowed a bit as Jake demonstrated the talents that first garnered him attention – the 18 year old alone on stage with an acoustic guitar. As talented as Jake is as a songwriter and guitarist, his lack of charisma unfortunately meant that the songs didn’t truly penetrate the heart in the same way as they do on record. This lack of charisma unfortunately seemed to be the problem throughout the first two thirds of the gig – the crowd lapped up the songs, but Jake only rarely seemed to mirror this excitement on stage. He obviously thanked the home crowd for their support throughout, but there was no gushing praise like the crowd were giving to him. We have to cut Jake some slack, he is of course only 18 and the weight of expectation seemed to burden him throughout the night.