Tom A. Smith | It Must Be Hull

Tom A. Smith plays the Polar Bear Music Club on Wednesday 25 November, a stop on his It Must Be Hull tour. He's only 22, but he's already put in a fair bit of mileage. He started out playing open mic nights as a young teen in the North East alongside Sam Fender, and from there he's gone on to play Glastonbury, Leeds and BBC Radio 1's Big Weekend. He's supported Gang of Youths, DMA's, Catfish and the Bottlemen, Miles Kane and Elton John, who personally picked him to perform at Hyde Park during the Farewell Yellow Brick Road shows. He's also been cast as Dave Stewart of Eurythmics in the upcoming musical memoir film Ebony McQueen.

Smith grew up in Houghton-le-Spring, just outside Sunderland, and picked up his first guitar at four. That early start explains a lot of the ground he's covered by his early twenties, and this tour brings him to the Polar Bear as part of that run. It's a singer-songwriter set, and the tour title It Must Be Hull puts the focus right here on the city.

The venue itself has its own bit of history. The Polar Bear Music Club closed during the 2020 pandemic under the ownership of a national company, but it was brought back in 2021 by the previous management as a Community Interest Company. Since then, it's run a mix of things: in collaboration with 'The Sesh', it stages free-entry nights every Tuesday and weekly free-entry club nights alongside its ticketed gigs. This is one of those ticketed ones, and it's part of a regular programme of live music that's kept the place going since it reopened.

Doors are at 7:30pm on Wednesday 25 November, with Tom A. Smith taking the stage as part of the It Must Be Hull tour.