ACL Live Shots

Frank Turner

"I wrote this when I was living in a hallway and sleeping on a sofa when precisely zero people gave a shit," punkified British folkster Frank Turner declared before closing out his set with boozy sing-along "The Ballad of Me and My Friends" from his 2007 debut, Sleep Is for the Week. "Now there are at least seven of you." Sorry, mate, but save the false modesty. The full band behind Turner (fine-tuning its set list for an upcoming tour with Social Distortion) sacrificed none of the potent intimacy of his solo days. The superficial comparisons to St. Joe of Strummer – the mix of moneyed English roots and childhood foreign travel – will always be with Turner, but when he blasts through the raucous call to DIY arms of "Try This at Home," he taps straight into a lineage of subversive British folk flowing back through New Model Army, Billy Bragg, and even Sunday night ACL headliner Richard Thompson. Turner may have been born with a silver spoon in his mouth, but he beat it into steel toe caps and sparkling, brilliant tunes years ago.