The Voice UK 2017

At the beginning of 2017 Lawrence gave all his fans a bit of a shock by making an unannounced appearance on the new ITV show, The Voice UK. Lawrence had played this one very close to the chest and not told a soul. "I wanted it to be a nice surprise for people who knew me and from what I was told there were a few spilt drinks and shouts at the TV when they saw me!".

the story

Lawrence originally got a phonemail from scouts at the Voice after seeing him perform at a venue in London. They managed to persuade him to be part of the show and he got fast tracked to the final stages of the audition process. He was then given the news that he had been chosen to perform on the 'Blind Auditions' on television in front of the celebrity panel of coaches. 

Blind audition

Lawrence sang and played guitar on his own take on the popular song 'Save Tonight' by Eagle Eyed Cherry. "It was a song that I was comfortable playing and The Voice team enjoyed my version so we ran with it". The Coaches seemed to feel the nostalgia of the track and begun suggesting that Gavin Rosdale should turn around. Will.i.am seemed to be especially enjoying the song and what happened next caused quite the scene. Will.i.am pressed his button which meant Lawrence was through! However Will.i.am then confessed that he turned by accident while he was rubbing his button! He went on to say that despite this, he was happy to have a "rocky sound" on his team and praised Lawrence for his 'Awesome vocal and cool guitar playing'. "At that moment I was just relieved to have gotten through, and everyone knows that Will.i.am loves a bit of amateur dramatics!"

#bUTTONGATE

The Controversy that followed the "accidental turn" from Will.i.am had not been expected from anyone. However Lawrence took it in his stride and never doubted himself. The public seemed to rally behind him and gave him so much support. The hashtag #buttongate soon went viral and suddenly everyone was trying to talk to Lawrence to get his side of the story. The YouTube video has had over 4.5million views and still counting! Good Morning Britain invited Lawrence for a chat live on television about it all.

The Battles

The next round of the contest saw Lawrence facing off against another act, in this case it was Jason Jones. They were paired up by Coach Will.i.am and given The Doobie Brothers song 'Long Rrain Runnin'. Lawrence sung with Jason and played the electric Guitar. "Working with Jason on this performance was an absolute pleasure and we had so much fun rocking out to the people watching". In the end, after much deliberation,  Will chose Jason to put through to the next round. Lawrence did however win 60% of the public vote despite not going through. "Winning the Voice was never something I wanted, I just aimed to appear on the show, have fun and say 'Hi I'm Lawrence and this is what I do'  to the world. Job done, bring on the next challenge." Who knows where Lawrence will show up next!