Hits and giggles with the prince of rock and droll
These days, James Blunt is arguably as well known for his Twitter feed as his music. Having sold more than 11million copies of his 2004 debut album Back to Bedlam, thanks largely to the worldwide hit You’re Beautiful, Blunt became a whipping boy for what was seen as bland, acoustic, soppy pop.
His reaction to the haters? Firing back with quick-witted put-downs and self-deprecating announcements on social media. Take, for example, this tweet from last December: “If you thought 2016 was bad – I’m releasing an album in 2017.” It’s why the singer now has 1.6million Twitter followers and regularly tops “social media’s greatest comebacks” lists.
This humour was much in evidence at his Hammersmith Apollo show. In fact, this 90-minute performance, part of a tour to support that new album, was as much stand-up routine as gig. And it was all the better for it.
Bounding on stage, clad in black, Blunt ran around like a demented rock god, imploring the audience to stand. If the middle-of-the-road music didn’t quite tally with the “rawk” image, it didn’t matter. He launched into Heart to Heart with a voice somewhere between Placebo’s Brian Molko and Tracy Chapman. “Now that Adele has given up music, I’m all you’ve got left,” he said.
Too often the songs bordered on bland, confirming Blunt as a highstreet version of the great troubadours. He’s an Elton John Lewis, a George St Michael, a Leonard Co-op. However, songs such as Bonfire Heart, Goodbye My Lover and – yes – You’re Beautiful were pure, accessible pop at its best.
The 43-year-old’s trajectory is well known. Harrow, Bristol University, Sandhurst, the Household Cavalry. Sleaford Mods he ain’t, and this is perhaps why the haters hate. The thing is, Blunt doesn’t care. And why would he? Millionaire rock stars with houses in Ibiza (Blunt reportedly drives around in a tuk-tuk imported from Thailand) and ski chalets in Verbier (he’s got a chairlift named after him) tend to be quite relaxed.
The new album, The Afterlove, includes a song called Make Me Better, co-written with Ed Sheeran. However, Sheeran’s influence runs deeper than that single track: it could be heard in numerous new songs Blunt played. Lose My Number, for example, shared the marimba minimalism of Sheeran’s Shape of You and was a welcome step away from the torch songs for Ocado shoppers of much of the set.
Sheeran provided joke fodder aplenty as Blunt has recently returned from a US tour as his support act. “For three and a half months I was Ed Sheeran’s bitch,” he deadpanned. There followed anecdotes about Sheeran’s toilet habits and how the pair bonded. “By day, I taught him how to ski,” said Blunt. “By night, he taught me how to write songs.”
He’s clearly loving life. And the audience loved him. Occasionally, Blunt seemed in danger of flirting with national treasure status. Like a posh Two Ronnies, he was weirdly comforting, very amusing, absurdly British, and able to poke fun at the thing he finds most amusing: himself.