Live Review: James Blunt

Live Review: James Blunt

Blunt is his name, and he is not subtle: Aidin Vaziri | For most sensitive singer-songwriters, entertaining a roomful of chattering, beer-soaked housewives is a teeth-gnashing affair. For Blunt, it had the opposite effect. He turned into a raging extrovert. The tousle-haired singer bounced around, cracked random jokes, locked eyes with the wedge-heeled beauties at the foot of the stage, climbed on the speakers for a spastic guitar solo and performed more than one song in front of a giant dancing monkey. Under the watchful eye of Linda Perry -- the songwriter behind Christina Aguilera's "Beautiful" and Pink's "Get the Party Started," who signed Blunt to her Atlantic Records imprint after seeing him at the South by Southwest music festival three years ago -- he played the ballad-heavy "Back to Bedlam" in its entirety, demonstrating that in an emergency, the album could conveniently double as a general anesthetic. The best parts of the British Army officer turned international singing star's 75-minute set were nervy covers of the Pixies' "Where Is My Mind" and Slade's "Coz I Luv You," songs that suggested he would be better off if he stepped away from the piano and dove into the mosh pit.