James Blunt will never be cool, and he knows it. And he clearly doesn’t care. Neither, for that matter, did an entirely packed Spark Arena audience last night.
Blunt was back in town, for the first time since 2017, to mark the 20th anniversary of his debut album, Back To Bedlam. Twenty years ago, You’re Beautiful was ubiquitous. Blunt’s not been the most visible musical presence last night, but he’s maintained a loyal fanbase, and last night’s show was a strong demonstration of why.
You’re Beautiful was the second song up in the show; the set-list for the first forty-five minutes followed the track listing from the album. “That’s the hit,” Blunt told his audience; “it’s all downhill from here.” He was wrong; he was very wrong. His 16-song set, followed by a three-song encore, reminded of just what a strong songwriter and performer Blunt is. His voice is stronger, richer on stage, the borderline-falsetto of the records finding a pleasing harshness and edge in person. And there’s the songs. The hits are, unsurprisingly, incredibly familiar; twenty years ago, You’re Beautiful got saturation coverage across the world’s radio stations, but No Bravery, Wisemen, Goodbye My Lover—you’ll be singing along to songs you’d forgotten about but that you knew so, so well.
But this wasn’t simply a trip to the museum, however, with new life breathed into old songs. Billy, for example, trotted and tripped along with a lightness that the song benefited from. And the more recent material that fleshed out the setlist showed that Blunt was far from a one-album wonder. Monsters, from 2019’s Once Upon a Mind, was extraordinarily touching and beautiful; even the drunk scouser a few rows behind me who wolf-whistled, loudly, through the first verse couldn’t detract from the loveliness of the song. 1973, the lead single from Blunt’s second album, All The Lost Souls, fairly stomped along. And Blunt knows how to steal from the very best—a highlight of the show was Slade’s Coz I Luv You, delivered with all the bootboy bounce that you’d hope for.
So the songs were great. The voice was strong. The band were polished. But what makes a James Blunt show is Blunt himself. The man’s a complete tart, a shameless one, and he clearly loves what he does. He bounces and hops around the stage, so it’s hardly entirely surprising that he sounds quite breathless between songs, as he tells his stories. And, oh, he tells stories. The man can talk. The tale behind Billy, essentially the story of how he pimped out his best mate, lasted longer than the song itself. And Blunt is, to be fair, known for his self-deprecating wit. He’s long been know for his strong Twitter game, and he knows how to play himself down. “Who’s here because their parents dragged them along?” he asked. “Sorry. You couldn’t pay me to go to a James Blunt concert.”
Blunt enjoys what he does enormously. He’s an absolute showman. And the result is a hugely enjoyable show, a set of hopelessly catchy songs sung with passion and energy and enthusiasm by a performer who cares about his audience and knows how to put on a show. As so many others do, Blunt closed out his show with a promise that he’ll be back soon. I’d guess that pretty much everyone in the audience hoped that the meant it.
