2024-02-28 19:58:46
Because he can raise his cuddly voice almost indefinitely, James Blunt is either spurned as a crybaby or loved dearly. The 5,600 spectators at his concert on Sunday at the Rockhal clearly belonged to the latter category.
Audience as James Blunt’s “guinea pigs”.
The Brit turned 50 this week, and almost two years following his last appearance in the small Luxembourg studio, he is now going on a world tour with a new album. The Rockhal was only the second stop following Amsterdam. His wife thinks he’s only been away for a month – although the concert tour lasts a year, he charmingly joked in his announcements, in which he also declared the audience to be “guinea pigs” for his new songs.
And they had it all. Blunt is great at crafting magical songs out of deadly sad things. In “Monsters” from the previous album “Once upon a mind” in 2019, he dealt with the fear of the death of his father, who was suffering from terminal kidney cancer and was waiting for a donor kidney. He actually received it now. But things don’t always end well: on the current album “Who We Used to Be”, the father of two dedicates the number “Dark thoughts” to his girlfriend, the actress Carrie Fisher (Princess Leia from “Star Wars”), who died in 2016. Blunt lived with Fisher – his “best friend ever,” as he sings – in Los Angeles when he recorded his first albums around 20 years ago.
Blunt promises “three hours of sad songs”
But the song is nothing compared to “The girl that never was”, in which he deals with the miscarriage of his daughter. Then you have to take a deep breath. The parents’ feelings of guilt, the mistake of having already given the child a name because it now has a face for them. And the feeling of never getting to know it. A beautiful but tear-jerking song in which Blunt once once more puts the guitar or ukulele aside and takes a seat at the piano.
But the concert is not at all unbearably difficult – even though Blunt announces “three hours of sad songs” early on. In the almost 100-minute show, he and his four musical companions find a good balance of quiet classics from his seven-album discography such as “High”, “Goodbye my lover” and “Carry you home” and up-tempo pieces from them.
“You’re beautiful” from a stalker’s perspective
The opener is the current “Beside you”, followed by “Postcards”, “Stay the night”, “OK”, “Bonfire heart” and at the end “1973”, in which he gets on the piano in the usual way and stands up there surfing on a surfboard.
When it comes to the show, there’s a lot on offer visually – animations, videos and live images on three screens – one the full width of the stage. The audience is there fervently from the first note, cheering and carrying him on their hands following jumping into the crowd during “Coz I love you”. “You’re beautiful” sings it almost alone. The popular wedding number with which Blunt made his breakthrough in 2005 and which many consider to be a song. However, he has since clarified, the song is written from the perspective of a crazy stalker. Blunt is always good for a surprise.
A song that is reminiscent of Manu Chao in its summery lightness
The greatest musical one is perhaps the new “I won’t die with you”, which is reminiscent of Manu Chao’s “Bongo Bong” in its summery lightness. One would have liked to have heard more than 20 songs, including “The truth”, “Love under pressure”, “Make me better” or “When I find love once more” – but Blunt mightn’t please every “guinea pig”.
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