HAPPY and confident, Frank Turner staged a bigger show than ever to a devoted crowd at the Boscombe O2 for the first date of his major new UK tour.

All three levels of the club were opened up and the night climaxed with a burst of strobe lights and confetti, as the white-shirted band lapped up the adulation in front of a red curtain.

Frank’s songs are the midpoint between hardcore and folk and he strained every sinew to entertain, creating a real bond with the crowd by the end of the night.

He sings with furious though somewhat sexless passion, and writes every-thinkingman’s lyrics about Wessex and adolescence. (‘I sing simple songs about rights and wrongs’, was the refrain on newie Cowboy Chords.)

New song Polaroid Picture (almost Britpop, but in a bad way) was about the demolition of the London Astoria, and trying to hold on to the positives amidst change – perhaps his defining theme.

The show built to a crescendo from a slow middle with great renditions of popular singalongs like I Still Believe and Glory Hallelujah - and a fun cover of Queen’s Somebody to Love.

He urged everyone to sing with almost mystical zeal during Photosynthesis, before closing with a lone version of The Ballad of Me and my Friends, inches from the outstretched hands of the front row devotees.