James Blunt
Collins Barracks
★★★★☆
Social media has ruined politics and handed a loud-hailer to lunatics – but goodness, has it done wonders for James Blunt. Once music’s favourite punch-bag, the moment he was set loose on Twitter (as it then was), Blunt was a pop star reborn. Funny, self-deprecating and a genius at sticking it to the cat-callers, he became more celebrated for his one-liners than his torch songs.
In truth, the Twitter zingers were only ever a bonus. A sell-out show at the National Museum of Ireland, Collins Barracks – part of the Wider Than Pictures season at the venue – confirms Blunt’s transformation into our favourite online comedian was built on solid musical foundations.
To get the obvious out of the way – yes, his tunes are frequently cheesy, and, more often than not, there’s a big “woah-oh-oh” bit leading up to the chorus. But isn’t it also the Coldplay formula? And look how much everyone loves them nowadays.
He starts with Chris de Burgh-goes-to-piano house banger Beside You, a lead single off last year’s Who We Used to Be album. The track mixes Ibiza beats and a reworked Ennio Morricone melody (an “interpolation” of Morricone’s lounge-pop bopper Alla Luce Del Giorno) to heartening effect. It also showcases Blunt’s ability to hit notes so high it’s a wonder they don’t punch through the gloomy patchwork of clouds gathered over Dublin.
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Blunt’s career started with a thunderclap when his debut LP Back to Bedlam became a global number one in 2005. That early phase of his career remain a touchstone for his audience, and the first big singalong of the night breaks out during Wisemen, where a chatty verse gives way to a huge hook (powered, inevitably, by his falsetto).
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Born James Hillier Blount, the singer was educated at Harrow, followed by Sandhurst and a stint in the Life Guards of the British Army’s Household Cavalry Regiment. Scratch the surface, though, and the posh exterior reveals a cheeky chap with bells on.
That much will have been obvious to anyone who read his 2023 autobiography, Loosely Based On A Made-Up Story: A Non-Memoir. It included an eye-popping anecdote about David Kitt being rude to Blunt in 2004, which the Dublin songwriter dismissed as a “completely fabricated Alan Partridge version of what happened”. Here was pop’s least likely difference of views since Azealia Banks feuded with the entirety of Ireland a few years ago.
On previous tours, Blunt’s chatter occasionally overshadowed the tunes. Tonight, he fires off a few quips – early on, he tells the crowd he’ll be focusing on new material because he has their money and has bolted the gates. But he mostly cracks on with the music. A stage dive during a cover of Slade’s Coz I Luv You is followed by You’re Beautiful – the tepid ballad that made him both a star and an international hate figure.
The song is one of the drippiest he’s ever written, and he seems glad to get it out of the way as he veers into OK, his jet-powered 2017 collaboration with German techno producer Robin Schulz, before rounding out the encore with the high-octane nostalgia-fuel that is 1973. It’s an affecting end to a performance brimming with banter but where the gags never eclipse the hits.
