Normally at Kingston’s Rose Theatre, you might go and watch a small comedy show, or maybe a pantomime, but on this Tuesday night out walked one of the UK’s biggest artists, fresh off the release of his second number one studio album: Stormzy.
With a drink in hand and just his DJ at the rear of the stage, Stormzy launches straight into ‘Big Michael‘ the opener from his new chart-topping project ‘Heavy is the Head‘. After excitedly running about the stage during the track, Stormzy takes a moment to reflect, speaking openly to the crowd stating: “Before we even start, this is just a thank you show, you’re gonna be hearing that from me a lot tonight. I’m gonna keep on telling you I love you, I’m gonna keep on telling you I appreciate you.“
Stormzy’s gratitude is a recurring theme throughout the show, which has a mainly positive and loving atmosphere throughout. His setlist of tracks like ‘Do Better‘, ‘Crown‘ and ‘Rainfall‘ all help to spread this message of positivity and show his gratitude to his fans. As an artist, it’s clear that he is definitely far too big now to be playing such a small venue, (having sold out the O2 arena for three nights later in 2020), but Stormzy makes it clear he is just as happy as everyone else that he’s doing the intimate show: “This isn’t just a room full of people, you lot have allowed me to support my family, to have a career….I don’t get this opportunity as often as you’d think.“
After a few more slower and emotional tracks, Stormzy brings the mood up again with the current chart-topping single ‘Own It‘. Over the course of the track, as he sings the lyrics “I put my hand there, hold it, I’ma be right by ya” he grabs a different member of the crowd’s hand each time – jokingly staring them dead in the eyes singing to them and likely making their evenings in the process.
A highlight of the evening came as Stormzy chose to perform his recent diss track to fellow grime MC Wiley not once, not twice, but three times. He prefaced the track by saying: “This is an intimate gig, it’s for family, it’s for friends…but it’s the last show…sometimes you know you just gotta go to war” before taking a swig of his drink and launching into ‘Still Disappointed‘. It was clear that Stormzy was really enjoying himself on stage and playing around, whilst also demonstrating how easily he’d won his latest rap beef.
After closing his set off with the iconic single ‘Vossi Bop‘, Stormzy made his way around the crowd thanking people, taking selfies and signing merch. He must have stayed in the venue for at least half an hour, before hanging around outside for another half an hour or so, to make sure that everyone got their photo and memory of the night. I can understand why festival headliners don’t often do intimate shows like this, but Stormzy put on an incredible show and proved that despite the fame, he’s still as humble and grateful as ever.
The Gig Archive 
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