James Blunt

I picked up tickets to see James Blunt off of Craigslist about a month ago, as the show was sold out. My friend, Sharon, came with.

Very strange scene. Older than I would have expected. Over-dieted, bottle blonde 45 year old women wearing sequined and spangly tube tops. One in particular that I deemed to be the love child of She-Ra and Skeletor, directly behind us. In front, two late-thirty-somethings whose style of subtle bee-bopping was oddly dated. Very knees together, symmetrical up-and-down bopping. To the right, a couple with some manner of European type woman and a South American (our best guess) smoothie, about 15 years older than her. His hand explored her ass extensively. I couldn’t look away.

Sara Bareilles was pretty great. She was very cute, wearing a great dress, endearing and engaging. She has a super voice, very powerful, and played along by herself or with the band on the piano the entire time. I was particularly moved by her song, Gravity.

James Blunt, I have to say, was on the lame side. Possibly I was prejudiced by the decidedly un-cool crowd. Or maybe I had just forgotten how many times I’d already heard You’re Beautiful already. But he did come across as arrogant and right pleased with himself. It annoyed me in one song that he trilled his ‘r’ in the word ‘through’ (twice) when he hadn’t been doing any ‘r’ rolling previously. And then he gave this little talk about how sad he gets about things in the news and how some things are more important and profound than whether or not Britney Spears is wearing any underwear. Totally true, of course. It is appalling that celebrity gossip gets way more coverage than the communities in a war ravaged Kosovo, but that Britney joke is about 18 months too old. Given how traumatic and dramatic recent Britney events have been, it was strangely inappropriate and just dated. And then afterwards, Sharon told me that he’d made the joke in an interview she saw with him on TV. My eyes roll even now thinking about it.

In any case, it’s always good to get out to see some music. I would see Sara Bareilles again. And James did do a Supertramp cover of Breakfast in America that was pretty cool. But again, he prefaced the song by saying that it seemed to have gone over well the last time he played in San Francisco. Perhaps it’s time for some new material, eh?