Blue: the 20th anniversary tour kicks off from Cardiff (Wales), celebrating twenty years of career and the launch of the new album “Heart & Soul”
If you were 16 in 2000, or if you had a 16-year-old daughter at the turn of the century, you know who Blue is.
Duncan James, Lee Ryan, Simon Webbe and Antony Costa literally drove our young teens crazy twenty years ago, marking the era of boy bands. I remember that there was a time when my house was covered with posters of these kids who had disrupted the traffic in Sanremo in 2003, on the occasion of their participation in the 53rd edition of the Festival.
Blue Story
The first two albums, All rise and One Love , are already a big success in the UK, while in Italy they go a little unnoticed, appreciated only for a couple of tracks, thanks to the participation of Elton John on the cover of Sorry Seems to Be the Hardest Word .
But here, the pinnacle of their success comes with the song Breathe Easy , rewritten in our language by Tiziano Ferro and known under the title ” A chi mi dice “. An amazing ballad, extracted from their third album Guilty which consecrated them to the divine altar of music and also brings the previous albums into the top ten of the national and international charts.
In 2004 it was already time for a Best of and, to follow, 4everBlue also sees a fans limited edition specially created for the Italian public.
In 2005, the gravestone on the band’s career seems to arrive with the release of Lee Ryan ‘s homonymous solo album , as do Simon Webbe and Antony Costa , but the band prefers to speak of a “pause for reflection”.
A break that lasts until the Eurovision Song Contest of 2011, where the Blue trace the stage in splendid form, picking up exactly where they left off.
Waiting for Blue
Cardiff ‘s Motorpoint Arena is sold out. The arena is packed already from six in the afternoon. The performance of the Blues is scheduled for 21 but they know how to do things well across the Channel. And then, space for all-female music.
The two hours pass from Cassa Jackson ‘s pop to Megan McKenna ‘s country (winner of X Factor UK in 2019) and end with an apotheosis of the audience for the historic B Witched , entertaining the audience and accompanying them to the main event of the evening.
The interval is a few minutes. Just enough time to change the scenography.
Dark.
Heart & Soul 20th Anniversary Tour
A piano intones the notes of Sorry seems to be the hardest word . There could be no better start.
The lineup winds between new hits, extracted from the latest album Heart & Soul, and greatest hits.
They are all there. Just all. Twenty years of successes that unfold in an hour and a half precisely.
The emotion is collective and not just palpable. It becomes almost physical and visible.
The mood is the same for everyone. Cheeks red with emotion and moist and veiled eyes, with smearing mascara, with a smile on your face that seems painted, a perpetual memory of a happiness that can only be perceived if you are 16 years old. Yet those teenagers are now young women, some are mothers, some are still single, others have just found love and it is with this new companion of emotions that they share their first concert together. And the same thing also applies to the male audience.
Heart & Soul , never a title was more apt.
Heart and Soul that unite the stage and the audience, in a single heart and soul . Because music has this power. It is the purest thing that exists to go back and forth in time and space, between memories and feelingsand touch the most intimate chords of the soul and heart.
Ladies and gentlemen, the Blue
Forty years and not hearing them. The boys have grown up and although they are no longer kids, the stage is a time capsule that brings them back to bouncing and wriggling as if twenty years hadn’t passed. Amazing form for all four, Duncan James, Lee Ryan, Simon Webbe and Antony Costa give their audience in the room, emotion after emotion, their heart and their soul, without reservations.
A feeling that is accessed from the first chord and that is maintained throughout the show. The Blue show that it is still time for ballads and dance, despite the changing fashions and the rampant reggaeton.
The Blues represent the bridge between the twentieth century and the new millennium. Perfectly embodying the evolution of music, looking respectfully at the “old” to adapt it to the “new” and giving a different perspective to the young talents who approached music in those years . They are not just a “boy band”, therefore, but a quartet that today brings to the stage a wealth of experience that is representative of the last twenty years.
The concert ended, punctually as it began, in perfect British style, but the tour continues. 11 more dates in December, across the UK, a Singapore date set for February 2023 and hopefully some European programming.
For everything else, there is the official site of the Blue.
