Leon Thomas leaves London begging for more at Eventim Apollo

Leon Thomas kicks off his London gig by playing unbelievable guitar solos and making his crowd bark for him. The final stop on the European leg of his Mutts Don’t Heel tour was, from beginning to end, a celebration. And after six nominations and two Grammy Award wins earlier this year, including Best R&B Album, a sold out show at the Eventim Apollo seems like a pretty great party to throw. 

Thomas and his genre-bending sound are some of the most exciting things to happen to R&B in the last few years, though he moves through the stage like a rockstar, and his band is small, but mighty. The singer is joined by a drummer (Rico) and a guitarist (ObieIII), all of them displaying so much presence it becomes easy to forget there are only three people on stage.

The show kicks off with ‘HOW FAST’, a groovy track where Thomas reflects about gaining rapid success. While the lyrics, “Oh Lord, I’m a visionary”, could easily sound pretentious out of anyone else’s mouth, when Thomas sings them under the bright red stage lights, they sound a lot more like well-deserved confidence — and his crowd shouts the words right back at him in agreement. 

As if the energy in the room wasn’t already electric enough, three songs into his set, Thomas surprises the concertgoers with his first guest of the evening, as rapper Ty Dolla $ign joins him to perform ‘FAR FETCHED’. Later on, the mood shifts from energetic to delightfully sexy, as Sasha Keable joins Thomas to sing the sultry ‘move it along’. The final member of Thomas’ trinity of guests is R&B singer Odeal, who takes the stage to perform their dreamy, laid-back hit ‘Miami’. For each guest, the crowd responds with just as much vigour — and no matter how fast or slow the songs get, this particular audience finds their rhythm with ease, dancing to each and every single beat as if under Thomas’s spell.

It is incredibly difficult for a discography so intricately produced to retain the same quality when played live, but Thomas and his team have clearly mastered that. As his set comes to a close with a mindblowing rendition of ‘MUTT’, I realise that with every guitar or drum solo performed throughout the evening — either by the singer himself or his masterful band members — I felt more certain that Leon Thomas is truly top dog, and when he performs, you better sit, stay and listen.