In my opinion, prior to this gig James Blunt had a lot to answer for. I mainly refer to the gut-wrenching ‘Goodbye My Lover’, and the various crazy videos which accompanied Back to Bedlam, namely that of ‘High’. I am pleased to say that after this concert, he has infinitely risen in my estimations.

Blunt’s performance was certainly not what I was expecting. Rather than sitting on the stage with an acoustic guitar and warbling about being depressed, he declared, “we’re in Cambridge baby!”, invited us all to remove any clothing we could to aid his performance, and then launched into a show that was surprisingly high tempo.

The warm-up act, Wakey Wakey, delivered terrible humour and semi-passable music, which fortunately got steadily better, and featured a remarkable cover of ‘Girls Just Wanna Have Fun’. However, they finished over half an hour before Blunt came on stage - what is the point of having a warm-up act if you leave time for the crowd to get ‘cold’ again?

To their credit, this crowd did not go cold, and when Blunt made his memorable entrance by pushing through the crowd from the back, they went wild. Justifiably, too. From the moment Blunt stepped onto the stage, he was captivating, and didn’t stop singing or throwing out jokes and conversation for a second. His rapport with the audience was excellent. He knows how to work the crowd, and how to get a laugh. When confronted with screaming fans and an excited atmosphere, he debated moving on to his faster songs, before deciding, “no, I’ve got hours and hours of miserable music!” Later in the show he decided to crowd-surf. Not at all what I was expecting when I signed up for a James Blunt concert.

There was a good mix of his old hits (unfortunately ‘Goodbye My Lover’ made its way in) and new songs. These were, however, accompanied by some dubious dance moves. Posing with his guitar and pacing up to various members of his band whilst playing, Blunt basically resembled Chuck Berry’s, or Angus Young’s duck-walk. It was a relief when he gave in at one point, and just did the duck-walk.

Despite his reputation for weepy songs, Blunt delivered some serious high-octane moments: big numbers with stunning lights and effects. Curiously there were several finale moments which would have made an amazing end to the show, but instead he chose to follow them up with a more mundane song. The order may have been questionable, but there was no doubt that every song had as much energy as the last, and that the audience was utterly rapt.

It is telling of the adoration and excitement of the crowd that when Blunt sang the line “won’t you say my name”, that the roar of “James” from the audience was deafening. It stopped even him in his tracks.