‘You have to ride your luck’: Jamie Webster’s rise from pub circuit to …
When Jamie Webster followed Paul McCartney to become only the second Liverpool artist to headline the M&S Bank Arena, it capped off a phenomenal rise from wild years on the pub circuit to a sold out show on the biggest stage in Merseyside.
And yet, the performance[1] to an 11,000 capacity crowd in November 2022 left something of a “bitter taste”, says the 29-year-old singer-songwriter, sitting in his studio in the north docks. His crowning moment had to be cut short[2] due to reports of safety issues[3] within the venue.
“‘We Get By’, ‘Going Out’, ‘This Must Be The Place’, ‘This Place’, ‘Weekend In Paradise’ - it's a big ending, it all matters,” says Jamie, talking through how the setlist should have flowed. But the first two songs had to be axed as the occasion was building.
“The messages they carry, they're messages of hope,” he explains, “‘We Get By’ definitely is and ‘Going Out’ is a message of defiance,” adding: “That's me, that's the message I want to portray, that's who I am.
“That's how I walk, how I talk. And to not be able to deliver that was shattering.”
While initially hit with disappointment, watching back official footage from the show in the days after brought everything into perspective - the sprawling journey he’d been on as an artist to that moment. Usually unable to hear the crowd due to ear plugs, the noise of the 11,000 strong audience on the recording underscored the power of his achievement - even if it was a few songs light.
“I was in tears at times,” he says. “That sense of unity and achievement in that room - it felt like it was [the crowd’s] achievement [too].”
Jamie Webster performing at The M&S Bank Arena in Liverpool on 19th November 2022 (Image: Liverpool Echo)
Any lingering blues were blown away when two follow up gigs at the Pier Head in front of a combined audience of 26,000, taking place next week, took little time to sell out. It will be another remarkable achievement in a whirlwind few years featuring the release of two albums, ‘We Get By’ and ‘Moments’.
It’s something he is seemingly taking in his stride, but it's a rise that isn’t without nerves and trepidation at times. He points to the Arena gig and Glastonbury 2022[5], a festival where he’s set to play his second set of the weekend later today[6], Saturday, June 24, as the shows that sent the body jangling the most. But he says this feeling is at the sharp end of the thrill.
After playing to an overflowing Left Field tent at Worthy Farm last year, he recalls falling into the arms of his mum and dad at the side of the stage - completely spent after the performance. “The comedown,” he adds, “it's like you've been in a fight.
“You don't remember it for a couple of days. That's what you live for, that's the drug.”
He adds: “I don't drink before or after shows. I don't live that rock and roll life.
“I'm focused, I'm driven. It's not just a case of I want to be successful and have nice things. It's a case of [wanting] that connection with people on the biggest scale possible.”
He describes the moments of waiting to come on stage as akin to the build up before a ring walk, or penned in the tunnel at Anfield ahead of a game. When seen pacing up and down, people will suggest to have a drink to take the nerves off.
“What do I want to take the edge off for? he replies, “these nerves, this feeling, it is what I want to do for the rest of my life.”
If playing the biggest stages in Merseyside and beyond feels like a 12 round bout, scrapping very much captures what it took to get there. And it wasn’t a journey that started with songs well versed on the Kop or with 2019’s debut single ‘Weekend In Paradise’, but a character building pub circuit in Merseyside's north end.
Jamie Webster in his Liverpool studio in the north docks (Image: Liverpool Echo)
A disciple of Bob Dylan and Paul McCartney, Jamie looks back fondly on his days of packing up his car with PA and guitar and going it alone. The Pacific in Bootle is one boozer he won over, but it wasn’t always the straight and narrow.
“The pubs was just covers, maybe one of two of my own tunes if I had the bol****s,” he says. He remembers one pub where “some of the lads used to try and fight with me and my mates”. On another occasion, a police raid disrupted the set.
It’s also where he got some of his most pointed criticism in the early days. “[There was this girl] and I thought she was going to go the toilet,” he remembers, “but before she did she made a beeline right to my face and said ‘you're f***ing s***e’.
He continued: “By the end of the night, her fella asked if I knew any Pink Floyd so I played ‘Another Brick In The Wall’, ‘Wish You Were Here’. He brought all his mates in, singing and dancing and she was left red faced all night.
“I'll never forget that. I've played some of the roughest, readiest, rambunctious nights. It was a proper apprenticeship - my Hamburg years almost.”
Working as an electrician from the age of 16, he nods to his mum and dad’s worth ethic as the inspiration for chasing his dream. Weeks would involve the daily grind in people’s lofts and underneath cupboards before driving his Peugeot 207 home in the West Derby/Norris Green area.
Ladders, drills, tools, “rubble, everything from jobs” would be tossed in the garage. A quick shower and tea wolfed down and the three-door 207 would be back on the road - guitars and PA crammed into any every space.
Jamie Webster in his Liverpool studio in the north docks (Image: Liverpool Echo)
A few years on and it was the likes of the Cross Keys and the Slaughter House in the city centre where Jamie could be found applying his trade. He was also a big attraction at the Liverpool FC oriented Boss Nights.
“I’d drive into town and play the gig and then get in at 1-2 in the morning,” he says, “the next day on Saturday, if I wasn't working for my dad, I'd be going and doing a job for one of my mates.”
While pencilling his own songs with the acoustic in hand as a teenager- many of which have since gone onto the record - he came to believe his days of making it as a musician had gone. This then spurred on the work ethic to earn as much as possible to help follow Liverpool FC around Europe as well as spending five weeks in South America.
“I worked like a dog to go and do it,” he says of the life changing trip. “If something was going to cost a lot of money to do, I worked hard to do it.”
He adds: “Years on end I did that. You don't get anything in life without putting the work in. I was in the right place at the right time with the Liverpool stuff, 100%, nobody knows that more than me. You have to ride your luck.”
The football connection has been the rocket fuel for Jamie’s career, something he happily admits, but the artist he always wanted to be was seemingly blocked out by red flare smoke at first. Nonetheless his raft of LFC tunes, notably ‘Alez, Alez, Alez’, provided a chance meeting on the way out to Madrid for the Champions League final in 2019.
The singer-songwriter is set to play to 26,000 people at the Pier Head over two nights (Image: Liverpool Echo)
On a club flight out to the Spanish capital, he was introduced to Dave Pichilingi who was said to be helping with the production at events planned in the build up to the game. On the flight Jamie says the pair started talking about music, eventually showing Dave videos of his own songs.
It later emerged that Mr Pichilingi Dave runs Sound City Festival and his own record label and passed his contact to Jamie to potentially get in touch when back in Liverpool. But after seeing Jamie play to thousands at the fan park ahead of the match, he’d received a message offering a record deal in principle almost instantly after coming off stage
It paved the way to recording at Liverpool’s revered Parr Street Studios. A backdrop he could only have dreamed about when fiddling with college equipment with his former band as a teenager.
Jamie says Mr Pichilingi was confident he could cross him over to a more music orientated audience, steering him away from the football events where he’d made his name. “I’m forever in his debt as nobody else was knocking on the door,” says Jamie, “not one person coming up to me [to ask about recording my own music].”
A dream come true, but making the transition to an artist of his own was again going to come with a fight. For years Jamie’s name had appeared under the banner of LFC themed events, so when adding tour dates, some fans bought tickets in hope they’d hear Liverpool chants.
The pressure almost brought one event in Ireland to a close. A girl climbed on stage and threatened to pull the main power socket if he didn’t play 'Alez Alez Alez', Jamie recalls.
It led to strongly worded advice when announcing new shows, stating: ‘no footy songs’.
Jamie Webster in his Liverpool studio (Image: Liverpool Echo)
“It was hard, it got me down,” he says. “Some days I couldn't get out of bed - thinking ‘what am I even trying for?’ As a singer-songwriter, this is what wakes me up in the morning and puts a spring in my step.”
While still a huge Liverpool fan who loves playing football themed shows, he describes how it felt like his fate was in the hands of other people who only wanted one side of his music. Covid, somewhat ironically, was a saving grace despite almost derailing Liverpool’s title charge, but in the end providing space to define himself away from the terrace songbook.
Forced to wait longer than hoped to hit the road with non-socially distanced shows, the release of second album ‘Moments’ provided the levitation to the achievements that were literally unthinkable a matter on months before. He dedicates much of this rise to the team around him and a city that “believes in me”.
“The amount of young kids who have picked up a guitar because of me,” he says, almost in disbelief of his influence, “I’ll always continue to give back to the community.”
As for the city he calls home, Liverpool in many ways shares a joint credit on his songwriting. “The spirit of the people, that’s keeps me grounded,” he says of his adoration of Merseyside and how it fuels his music.
But politics is right on the surface bubbling away - often succinctly captured by the “F*** the Tories” chants which cascade around his live shows. So much of what Jamie does with the guitar in hand is to offer a “voice of the voiceless”, as he puts it.
He added: “That message of community and coming together across the board, people like ourselves who face the same [issues]. A message of how to take joy from life, how to make the wrong right. Or maybe question the wrong to get to the right.
“To me that is not circumstantial to being in Liverpool, it is the line that you walk. If my music can make a person's day better, that's a start.”
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References
- ^ the performance (www.liverpoolecho.co.uk)
- ^ had to be cut short (www.liverpoolecho.co.uk)
- ^ safety issues (www.liverpoolecho.co.uk)
- ^ City's inspiration and ‘real life stories' on ‘your doorstep’ (www.liverpoolecho.co.uk)
- ^ Glastonbury 2022 (www.liverpoolecho.co.uk)
- ^ second set of the weekend later today (www.liverpoolecho.co.uk)
- ^ Sign up to the Liverpool Daily Post for your daily digest of news and analysis that delves into the biggest stories on Merseyside (www.liverpoolecho.co.uk)