James Blunt

James Blunt returned to Nottingham to end his UK tour in style. It wasn’t that long ago when he would play the really small venues in Nottingham- but in very little time he has progressed from The Social to the Rescue Rooms, then onto Rock City, and obviously this show at the Nottingham Ice Arena. It goes without saying that this show was sold out many months ago.

One of the problems that this type of intimate music suffers with- is that the bigger the venue the less intimate the music is, and so there was a huge doubt about Mr Blunts music being able to keep that intimate feeling in a venue of this size - thankfully though, somehow James managed to keep it intimate.


Even during his most intimate song ‘Goodbye My Lover’ the cloud of silence just washed over the audience, so that you could hear every note sweeping across the arena from the piano. Quite possibly one of the most surreal atmospheric moments I have ever witnessed at a gig.

As you can imagine vocally James is exceptionally good, and that was still the case at this show. However one thing that came across from James was that despite the fact he is now a very popular artiste and I imagine earning a lot of cash- he still doesn’t seem to have let fame and fortune go to his head- he is still well-grounded and doesn’t seem to have any of the ‘do you know who I am’ egocentrism that a lot of musicians in his position have!


The show itself was one of those shows where the stage set up was nothing to elaborate, just a few lights, a couple of video screens (which at a venue this size is a must!), and a piano and other instruments on the stage.

I wont bother listing all of the songs he played as currently he has only released one album ‘Back To Bedlam’ and so if you think of any track off that album, he definitely played it. Yes he saved ‘You’re Beautiful’ for the encore.

There were many highlights throughout the show- but a couple of my favourites were ‘Goodbye My Lover’ which was just breathtaking to see a crowd of 10,000 people just in pure silence listening to the piano and vocals.


‘Bravery’ was another impressive highlight of the show, on the video screen in the centre of the stage, there was video footage of war and destruction which made the song just that little bit more powerful!

Once again James Blunt demonstrated that he is without a doubt one of the best live acts currently around, and he is one of the few artistes to have mastered the art of keeping intimate music intimate in stadiums!!

FUTURE GIGS