Reflections of an ageing gig goer! 2

James Blunt and Lucy Spraggan Royal Albert Hall London April 10 2024

This concert was a present for my wife who is a massive James Blunt fan. It was November 2017 that we last saw him live, so I bought tickets for us to see him at her favourite venue, the peak of acoustic perfection that is the Royal Albert Hall. Last time I saw him I wrote this review of a concert I absolutely loved, so on the quiet I was really looking forward to it as well! At the merch stand I bought the tour programme, a sadly rare sight these days, and a t-shirt for my wife promising that ‘Life’s Better with James Blunt’!! Let’s see if it was shall we?

The support act for last night was Lucy Spraggan, whose name was familiar but whose songs weren’t. She bounced on to the stage with an enthusiasm that didn’t wane for 40 minutes. Her first two songs, Run and Lucky Stars were a good introduction to her style, lyrically interesting and accompanied by tunes that lodged into your head quite quickly. She told the audience that it was her job to warm us up for James Blunt and to make sure we were in good voice. A cover of 500 Miles by The Proclaimers led to some fairly enthusiastic communal singing which, we were assured, was louder than the audience the previous night at the same venue! Why do I have the suspicion that every audience is told this? 🤔🤣 Anyway, whatever the truth Spraggan’s warming up was very effective throughout. My favourite song of the set, Blues Song, had a very amusing story attached of her experience playing in a Blues club in Sheffield (if I remember rightly) where she delivered a set with no blues songs. A heckler pointed this out and she went home and wrote a blues song that night. She returned to the club a few months later, saw the same heckler and dedicated the song to him! He walked out apparently, probably through embarrassment, and missed a very amusing and authentically bluesy song as a result. My other favourite of the set was Balance, the title track from her 2023 album, a reflection of some very difficult times she endured and dedicated to her therapist. The lyrics were extremely honest and personal and I thought it was an excellent song in every respect. As a warm up act she was absolutely perfect, so if you haven’t heard Lucy Spraggan in many years, do yourself a favour and head over to Spotify

The main man himself took to the stage just after 9pm and from the start he was outstanding. James Blunt may be a figure of fun, a role he has amplified himself through his hilarious social media posts, but as an artist and a live performer he is deadly serious. A one-two start of Beside You and Saving a Life from the most recent album, ‘Who We Used to Be’ was delivered with punch and panache. He then told the audience that everything he had done so far on this tour was just practice for us, his most important audience! He also said that he was only playing new songs tonight and we couldn’t do anything about it because he’d locked the doors and he already had our money! 🤑 It was the same easy humour that he displayed on his tour in 2017, but he was rewarded with a huge laugh and an equally huge cheer when he ‘relented’ and played a couple of old tracks.

The new album, which Janet had listened to a number of times, is a reflective and in the case of some tracks very sad album. Dark Thoughts was a tribute to Carrie Fisher who was a close friend of his, but nothing could prepare me for The Girl That Never Was. I knew that the song was about loss, a loss that my wife and I had also suffered many years ago, and it brought me to tears as I listened to the heart breaking lyrics. It is one of the most powerful songs I have heard in years, and it wouldn’t be the last time he brought me to tears in his set.

It’s really interesting reflecting on how skilfully he balanced the sad songs and the upbeat crowd pleasers. In less adept hands the evening could have been brought to a halt by the sadness and the upbeat songs could have sounded out of place, but they never did. Why is that? Well, I think it has everything to do with his stage persona and his real persona being so similar. Yes, he is larger than life to the extent that any performer has to be, but he wears his heart on his sleeve, isn’t afraid to show his vulnerable side and is as genuinely grateful for the love and support of his audience as any act I have ever seen. He seemed close to tears himself at the reception given to his songs. After You’re Beautiful, which led to the expected mass singalong, he looked out at the audience with a sense of wonder and said, ‘I’m such a lucky little bugger!’ and the way he said it was just one of the most genuine, heartfelt moments of this or any other gig I’ve been to. I would say that he is one of the finest concert performers I have seen in over four decades of gig going. His voice is outstanding, his guitar playing excellent and his piano playing out of this world at times, especially on a cover of Slade’s Coz I Luv You. The encore started with the gut wrenching sadness of Monsters, a song about saying goodbye to his father, that once again had me in tears. You have to be incredibly sure of yourself and your audience to start an encore that way, but it was perfect. Then he did the song I’d been waiting for all evening, the magnificent Bonfire Heart, one of the best songs of the last 20 years in any genre. He followed this up with fan favourite 1973 and one of the best concerts imaginable ended in a wave of love and affection to and from the stage.

So if your wife or girlfriend (not to stereotype but the audience was quite female dominated!) ‘drags you along’ be prepared to enjoy yourself immensely as you surrender to the talent, humour and genuine emotion of the one and only James Blunt, a live performer from the very top rank.