Sam Fender rocks 20,000 Edinburgh fans at triumphant Royal Highland Showground concert
Geordie guitar hero Sam Fender rocked 20,000 fans at his large outdoor Edinburgh show last night.
Playing as part of the Summer Sessions 2025 concerts in Edinburgh and Glasgow, the ‘Seventeen Going Under’ and ‘Hypersonic Missiles’ singer performed in the shadows of Edinburgh Airport, at the Royal Highland Showground on Friday, August 23.
The North Shields singer-songwriter is riding high with the success of his third album ‘People Watching’, released earlier this year, hitting the number one spot and spawning successful singles in the charts.
The crowd piled in early to catch Fender’s friend Olivia Dean’s support slot, with Newcastle United strips everywhere you looked, a nod to Fender’s love for ‘the Toon’, with his fan favourite saxophonist Johnny "Blue Hat" Davis always wearing the iconic black and white striped football shirt when performing.
Taking to the Ingliston stage at around 9pm, just as the sun began to set on the Summer Sessions crowd, Fender made the clever choice of starting with a local themed song, ‘Angel of Lothian’, a song about his mother who lives locally, and as he informed fans, was in attendance for this special Edinburgh show. The heartfelt bonus track from 2021 album Seventeen Going Under was well received by the crowd.
The first mass singalong of the night was for ‘Will We Talk?’, and the singing continued with upbeat and catchy as hell pop rock track ‘Getting Started’, which was used in a recent P&O Cruises television advert.
The crowd were already in the palm of the talented singer songwriter’s hand, but he upped the adoration by telling fans “it’s nice to be back in the best country in the British isles”, before launching into first offering of the night from his latest album, ‘Inside Out’, which was very well received by the varied age-wise crowd, with groups of teenage boys and girls joined by older couples and families in the good natured and friendly audience.
Talented support act Olivia Dean joined Fender on stage for recent collaboration ‘Rein Me In’ - which went well in the charts hitting number six recently, and also went down well with the Edinburgh crowd who were singing and dancing along.
More new tracks were also very well received, including ‘Crumbling Empire’ and album title track ‘People Watching’ - which prompted a mass singalong.
Fender then talked more about his Scottish connections, mentioning his mum again and his love for Scotland, which obviously delighted the Edinburgh crowd.
‘Seventeen Going Under’ bonus punk rock track ‘Howdon Aldi Death Queue’ got the crowd bouncing as the night chill kicked in, with the sun now gone and just the stage lights and fans’ mobile phone lights lighting up the arena.
Fender then dedicated ‘Spit of You’ to friend and local pop star Lewis Capaldi from Whitburn- who “is here somewhere tonight”, before the Geordie appeared to spot his famous pal at the side of the stage much to his bemusement.
The crowd were then bouncing on mass to hit single ‘Seventeen Going Under’ before Fender left the stage with the crowd wanting more.
And they certainly got more, as the talented North Shields singer returned to perform the heartbreaking and beautiful ‘Dying Light’, before the triumphant ‘Hypersonic Missiles’ with a clearly buoyed Fender loving the crowd taking on singing duties, with him challenging the fans to be louder and louder, to which they happily obliged.
Fireworks lit up the night sky and ticker tape covered the joyous crowd as Fender wrapped up his impressive 90 minute set and left the stage to thunderous applause.
Although Fender was faultless, with the crowd also playing their part at a real feel-good Friday night concert next to Edinburgh Airport, the mood was dampened for Fender fans trying to exit the large venue, with the remote location proving a real problem.
Bottle necks quickly appeared as fans tried to leave, with the darkness and the sheer vastness of the site a headache for fans heading home.
And with thousands queuing to get a tram back into Edinburgh it took 90 minutes to exit the venue and board a tram, the same length of Fender’s triumphant set, something organisers really need to look at if they want to entice music fans back to Ingliston for large open air shows in the future.