Strawberry Guy at Scala

Indie-pop singer-songwriter Alexander Morgan Stephens takes to the stage tonight as the more widely recognised Strawberry Guy. The Liverpool musician is touring his upcoming album Give Me a Dream, which leans into folky strings and melodic choruses, and tonight’s sold-out show at London’s Scala is the perfect place to showcase it.

Stephens walks on to a prelude of strings and sits down at his keyboard in the packed venue, where he stays for the entire set. As he launches into a new nostalgic number, I’ll Never Feel That Young Again, it’s a bit of a shaky start vocally, as he sometimes struggles to project and fully hit the right notes. The song is beautiful, however, with hints of 1970s legend Nick Drake and a nod to the more modern Angel Olsen.

His audience here tonight is made up of a majority of very young fans, perhaps explained by the nature of his rise to fame, thanks to his 2019 single Mrs Magic, which was used in a whopping 70,000 TikTok videos. It’s a stark reminder of just how differently teenagers digest music in the social media era compared to the days of chart-chasing.

Lead single Love Me Like You Used To is delivered wonderfully and melancholically, serving as a promising taster for Stephens’s new record.

Meanwhile, the artist’s older tunes, such as F Song and Without You, get almighty shrieks from the crowd, showing that the 30-year-old has already curated a dedicated fanbase. It’s his cover of fellow Liverpool band Her’s that gets the biggest reaction of the night, however, as the group, with whom Stephens was friends, tragically died in a car crash while touring in 2019. The soulful rendition of the poignantly titled track What Once Was is a delicate tear-jerker, which late band member Stephen Fitzpatrick wrote about the death of his mother when he was 11.

Strawberry Guy is a joyful and chatty performer, which contrasts nicely with the sadness in many of his songs. At one point, he whispers to the crowd that he won’t be doing an encore because he doesn’t agree with them, which is always nice to know beforehand, so people can exit the venue without worrying about missing anything.

The set draws to a close with the highly anticipated TikTok sensation track Mrs Magic and the similar Mac DeMarco-era sound of What Would I Do? While Stephens’ dreamy notes are the ideal antidote to an otherwise overly noisy world, it’ll be interesting to see where this next record takes him. While social media has no doubt helped him massively with his career so far, this next year will hopefully propel him beyond its confines.

Hannah Broughton
Photos: Tae Fukushima

For further information and future events, visit Strawberry Guy’s website here.

Watch the video for Love Me Like You Used To here: