Ian Gittins's Blog

"Are you guys still with us?" asked Jon Bon Jovi, one-and-a-half hours into his band's Sunday night Isle of Wight festival headline set. "Because we are just getting started!"

He is the best-connected man in indie rock. Miles Kane has recorded with Alex Turner as The Last Shadow Puppets; Noel Gallagher sang on his debut solo album; Paul Weller is on his new one; and he is even bezzy mates with Everton and England left-back Leighton Baines. But away from the superstar collaborations, what is he all about? As he releases new album Don’t Forget Who You Are, he tells us why rock & roll will never die – and why he is no longer wearing eyeliner.

“Does anybody even know who won the first series of The Voice?” asked the reliably waspish Louis Walsh recently, defending his beloved X Factor against its rival TV talent show. Well, yes, Louis, a few million people know that it was Leanne Mitchell.

Six months ago, they were virtually unknown. Since then they have enjoyed two massive top ten singles, including a number two with White Noise, and recorded a killer debut album, and now people are talking about them as the breath of fresh air that the moribund British dance music scene so desperately needs.

Depending on what you read and whom you believe, he is a man of the people, an over-privileged Old Etonian, a punk rocker, a folky protest singer, a firebrand revolutionary and a secret Tory.

So which is the real Frank Turner, and how has a nation come to love him?

Veteran boy band Blue were by far the best thing about The Big Reunion, the recent fly-on-the-wall TV reality series that invited pop groups of yesteryear to reform and look back on just where it all went right and wrong.