Sam Fender performs at Fox Theater in Oakland on April 11, 2025. Steve Carlson/STAFF.

OAKLAND, Calif. — Nearly three years since his last appearance in the Bay Area, Sam Fender returned with a level of energy and excitement you’d expect from an artist that had bagged his third BRIT award mere months earlier. Yet despite his continued success, the level of fandom and awareness of his music on this side of the pond still seemed to surprise him.

“We thought we were gonna land and there was gonna be no one fucking there; every single night has been mind-blowing,” the 30-year-old North Shields native admitted, matter-of-factly.

Fender and company spent 90 minutes in the sold-out Fox Theater playing tracks from his newest album, People Watching, along with fan favorites from his first two albums, 2019’s Hypersonic Missiles and 2021’s Seventeen Going Under.

The set for the evening offered up a mix of high-energy tracks that had attendees out of their seats, screaming along with the lyrics, with lower-paced tunes that highlighted Fender’s guitar-playing mastery.

Sam Fender performs at Fox Theater in Oakland on April 11, 2025.

Throughout the evening, Fender and his band propped up their stellar performance with a healthy dose of audience interaction. Keyboardist Joe Atkinson was jumping out of his seat to the side of the stage, waving enthusiastically at fans in the balcony to get up and sing or clap.

And Fender kept the banter with concertgoers going, sometimes in true, self-deprecating British fashion. At one point he noted how he and his band were all just a bunch of “idiots” from the northeast of England.

He even acknowledged fans of his hometown soccer club; those wearing Newcastle United FC shirts, who dotted the crowd. Fender took a moment to throw out a “Toon Toon,” which was promptly responded with a “Black and White Army!” – a common call and response chant by NUFC fans during matches. Attendees intermittently kept this going throughout the night.

Brooke Bentham, the newest member of the band and a fellow Geordie, stood next to saxophonist Johnny “Blue Hat” Davis, oftentimes bopping from side to side, clearly having a blast. Bentham shifted from vocals and tambourine on one song, to keyboard or guitar in the next.

Her vocals can be heard across People Watching, and in concert, her contributions to songs like “Little Bit Closer” and “Arms Length” were a reminder how she added a terrific vocal dynamic.

There were a few hiccups throughout the evening. The band had to pause after “Crumbling Empire” because Fender broke an in-ear monitor. Meanwhile, it took two tries to start “Little Bit Closer.” Despite these minor inconveniences, Fender didn’t miss a beat, taking everything in stride and simply weaving this into the overall vibe of the evening: to play great music, but don’t take himself too seriously.

This vibe was seen throughout the show, especially during the wall-of-sound  “Howdon Aldi Death Queue.” After the song, Fender called it “the dumbest song I’ve ever written,” adding he was genuinely surprised that the label had picked it up at all.

Sam Fender performs at Fox Theater in Oakland on April 11, 2025.

The band finished off the main set with the title track from Seventeen Going Under. But not before Fender broke the fourth wall, musing how encores are “dumb.”

As the group played the song, the performance hit a crescendo. As the band left the stage, the audience continued singing the final bit of the song until the musicians returned.

The encore included “Something Heavy” and “Hypersonic Missiles,” which closed out the night with a bang.

L.A.-via-Chicago band Young Jesus opened the show, starting with “God’s Plan,” the closer to its most recent album, The Fool.

The band offered a folky, storytelling vibe with lyrics that focussed on love, loss and spirituality, while having a slightly quirky ’90s-band stage presence—as if the Barenaked Ladies were mashed with The Lumineers.

Frontman John Rossiter paired powerful vocals with self-effacing narrative between tracks. The group played through four other songs, including newer cut “Rabbit.”