James Blunt was in San Francisco with Me!

Last night I was with James Blunt at his concert at the Warfield. So maybe I wasn't exactly "with" him unless you consider a couple thousand people venue as being an intimate rondevouz. Ok - I was only there for the concert with the teeming masses and I was with the husband but a girl can dream can't she?

The husband was my official photographer of the event. He was great. It was too dark and far away for flash protography to be effective, plus that was prohibited, so he had to do super long exposures and try to keep the camera steady, which was not an easy task to accomplish in an estrogen filled room of dancing and swaying women along with the guys they dragged along to the show.

The opening acts, Sierra Swan and Boy Least Likely To were pretty cool and their music is on iTunes if you are interested.

James Blunt wonderful! The program was well rehearsed. The lighting was live and not pre-programmed. JB played at least 5 or 6 songs that aren't on the album and I am going to go crazy until I find out all the names of the new songs! I remember at least one new song name, Same As Day. The music and singing were live - no lip syncing - thank you very much. And the music had a harder edge to it than the Back to Bedlam album has - I really enjoyed that. It just shows how different the songs can be when performed live and also the difference between studio musicians whose playing has been homogenized by editing versus the energy of a live performance by the tour band.

JB did ask the audience to refrain from screaming and making noise during No Bravery and Goodbye My Lover" and for the most part the audience was. He also did jump on top of the speaker during one of the songs.

All in all - the JB concert was one of the best Birthday/Anniversay presents the husband has ever given me! We even got to have seats, since we were in the balcony! Other teeming masses were crammed onto the floor below. Oh I almost forgot to mention the husband and I ate at Original Joe's prior to the concert and while we were walking we found JB's tour bus! I fished out one of my business cards and wrote a note on the back of it and put it under the windshield wiper of the bus. Who knows if he'll ever get the note but it was fun never-the-less!

There were only 2 downsides of the whole evening: I know that artists only really make money off their touring, since the record companies take most of the money from the album sales unless the artist also has written the music, then they get some $$ from the album. All the tickets for the concert were a face value of $25 and I know that most of the people there had to buy them from second market vendors or off of eBay for much higher like we did. Our 2 tickets cost us $150 and I know that tickets in the lower sections of the balcony were going for $299+ per seat! Crazy! It's such a shame that JB won't see any of that $$ from the second market ticket scalpers. The other downside was that as we were leaving the theater, I totally missed the bottom 2 stairs and strained my ankle pertty badly. So now I am stuck with propping it up and icing it today.

I am, however, so glad we went to the concert! I didn't get to bed till 1am and the husband stayed up even later to clean up the pics but it was worth it!



More pics from the 04/06/06 James Blunt Concert at the Warfield in San Francisco!