Wiltshire pop, folk-rock singer, James Blunt, has announced a UK stadium tour set take place at the beginning of 2025. In honour of his debut album ‘Back to Bedlam’ turning 20 this year, Blunt will be performing five shows in stadiums across the UK in February of next year.
The 2004 album produced by Custard and Atlantic Records featured the hit singles You’re Beautiful and Goodbye My Lover which propelled Blunt into stardom and made him a household name. Goodbye My Lover featured in the US version of The Office in 2005 and You’re Beautiful can be heard in many movies and shows across the last 20 years. Goodbye My Lover was even the most popular funeral song in Australia in 2006. The two popular songs were the third and fourth songs to be released as singles for the hit album and the sounds of these dulcet and melancholy songs as well as the ‘tortured-lover’ of the noughtie’s first single High could be heard almost everywhere.
It’s no wonder then that ‘Back to Bedlam’ was so popular, encompassing perfectly the 00s era’s atmosphere of heart wrenching rom-coms and the sad-mellow pop they only play today on ‘Magic Radio’. In December 2009, the album has sold over 3 million copies and became a certified 10× Platinum record by the British Phonographic Industry which made it the best selling album of the 2000s. It currently ranks as the 18th best selling album of the UK charts ever and in 2017 it had overtaken it’s 2009 sales record just in the UK alone (with 3.3 million sold) and had sold 12 million copies worldwide.
As well as the upcoming tour, the singer-songwriter also announced an anniversary edition of the album that will be released on the 11th October of this year which will, as he detailed on Instagram yesterday, be exactly 20 years since it’s initial release. The album will feature the original track list in full as well as some unreleased tracks which were recorded during the making of ‘Back to Bedlam’ and some original demos of fan favourites. You can pre-order the album on Blunt’s website here to gain access to the tour’s pre-sale which will begin next Wednesday on the 29th of May.
Speaking of the re-release, Blunt was his authentic-blunt and humble stating , according to NME, that he has ‘released seven studio albums, but ‘Back To Bedlam’ was the one people actually bought.’ As for the tour, fans are in store to hear Blunt ‘play all the songs from ‘Back To Bedlam’ in full, from start to finish, and chuck in the better-known songs from later albums to finish’. Sarcastically, he jokes that he wants to ‘milk it [‘Back to Bedlam] for all it’s worth’. Fan’s thinking of attending the show will be pleased to know Blunt himself believes it may be his best yet, commenting that he’s been touring for 20 years but in regard to this anniversary tour he declared that ‘it’s going to be, well, it pains me to say it… beautiful’.
