He's beautiful ...

He's beautiful ...
Contra Costa Times - CA,USA
By Tony Hicks. ANY GUY AFRAID of letting a woman see his emotions should immediately buy a ticket to a James Blunt show. Never mind ...
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And talented, but Blunt's stuck in tunnel of love
By Tony Hicks
CONTRA COSTA TIMES

ANY GUY AFRAID of letting a woman see his emotions should immediately buy a ticket to a James Blunt show.

Never mind, for a moment, the idea that Blunt is a talented songwriter who desperately needs to mix things up if he wants his career to last as long as the women screaming for him hope it'll last. Never mind the ultimate idea that if someone tells you they love you out of the blue -- or even once or twice a day -- it certainly stands out more than if they hang on your shoulder repeating it 12 hours straight.

James Blunt -- who played the Warfield in San Francisco on Wednesday -- doesn't yet know how to mix up the vibe in concert. But he certainly can't be accused of not finding his niche.

The 32-year-old singer, who looks younger and is considered a hot new crooner type, draws somewhat misguided comparisons to Rod Stewart. Blunt certainly isn't coming up through the ranks with the likes of Jeff Beck and Ron Wood.

Blunt also gets compared to Jeff Buckley and Elliott Smith, neither of whom were inclined to lay out their emotions as plainly as Blunt.

He clearly has songwriting talent, and there's no doubt that the sincerity of his lyrics are real when one sees him. It's just that Blunt's romanticism, longing and sentimentality loses its power in concert because there's almost no contrast. He writes sometimes powerfully honest lyrics, something for which he should be commended. That over-the-top, open and unashamed wearing of emotions is why his San Francisco show sold out so fast. Women in the audience leaned forward, as if they and Blunt were the only two people in the room, when the singer let his feelings loose in a particularly poignant moment.

But the sentimentality piled up high enough to trip over. Toward the end of the show, his powerful version of the anti-war song "No Bravery" was a welcome departure from the love songs, even when having to watch footage of burned-out villages and refugees (images Blunt no doubt is familiar with, as he was a British soldier who led troops as part of a U.N. force in Kosovo).

Which is why context is so important. Blunt clearly isn't some pimply faced teen longing for love. His experiences shape the viewpoint in his songs.

But it simply piles up onstage. He desperately needs variation, despite being one studio record into his career.

And it's not like he can't provide it. At times, when he finds a groove with his four-piece backing band, he could sound like measured, '70s Elton John. He clearly understands how to arrange a song around vocal hooks, and how to transition within song structure. After opening with "Breathe," Blunt showed some soul in his voice on "Billy," meshing well with the keyboards driving the song.
But by the end of the airy "High" and "Cry," he was in need of a change-up -- something to make the pedestrian stuff stand out by breaking it up.

Instead, he went a bit Art Garfunkel-falsetto on "I Really Want You," a well-paced song that nevertheless could have been a real live highlight had Blunt built it to a real crescendo with his band, instead of letting it fizzle.

"No Bravery," however, gave the show a focal point for the first time. The vibe carried over to new song "Same Mistake," featuring Blunt and a piano. When the band came in, helping to build it some, "Mistake" could have passed for a Train song, though Blunt's songs clearly have more depth. After that, the band found some groove and even included a guitar lead or two in the next few songs.

Blunt dedicated his last song of the night to Linda Perry, the songwriter supreme and former singer for 4 Non Blondes, who was at the show and who "discovered" Blunt three years ago.

From there it was a massive, mostly female sing-along to Blunt's massive hit "You're Beautiful." Whatever Blunt's approach to winning over female fans, it's working nicely. He has real potential to expand that base with his next record, if he can mix it up some and get the guys singing as well.
Tony Hicks is the Times' pop music critic. Reach him at 925-952-2678 or thicks@cctimes.com.

CONCERT REVIEW
BLUNTLY SPEAKING
Some things you might not know (and maybe didn't want to know) about James Blunt:
• HE WAS BORN James Blount on Feb. 22, 1974. One can only speculate as to why he changed his name; allegedly it was to make it more memorable. "Blunt" must have sounded better than "Joint."
• BOTH HIS FATHER and grandfather were in the British Army.
• BLUNT ATTENDED the Britain's Sandhurst Military Academy, the same school attended by Winston Churchill and currently by Prince William and Prince Harry.
• BLUNT WAS A CAPTAIN in the British army, and helped lead 30,000 British peacekeeping troops into Kosovo, where he spent a year.
• WHILE IN LOS ANGELES, recording his 2005 debut album "Back to Bedlam," Blunt stayed with his girlfriend's family friend, Carrie Fisher. Tracks for Blunt's big hit "You're Beautiful" were recorded in Fisher's bathroom, which is big enough to keep a piano.