British boy wonder James Blunt crooned to a sold-out Sokol Auditorium Tuesday night, riding the night out on his hot and hoarse falsetto and shaggy good looks. And what a strange, strange ride it was.

The normal indie-rock crowd of the Sokol was transplanted by hundreds of West Omaha socialites, with their distressed jeans and graphic tees, 3-inch stilettos and sparkly eyeliner. In the place of lighters and glow sticks flashed the blue screens of cell phones: concert-goers texting, talking and recording through the evening.

Blunt didn’t mind. His simple ballads, which may have once been considered better for a quiet bar with a crooked wooden stool and a mic, intoxicated the denim-clad crowd. Twenty-something girls shrieked as he bounced toward the stage’s edge, with one girl timidly offering up a humongous black padded bra.

I say bounced because that’s what he did. He’s in fact a very peppy, bouncy fellow, despite his sad-story songs of heartbreak, loss and war. His self-deprecating British humor between songs was a curious contrast to those haunting lyrics and lonely piano poundings.

Another strange contrast: A bizarre dancing cartoon monkey outline that flitted across the background scene through several of his songs. There was also one on the bass drum. Mr. Blunt, what is up with that monkey?

The high point of the show wasn’t the much-anticipated hit single, “You’re Beautiful,” or his flirty winks to the shrieking girls and soccer moms up front. It wasn’t the last official song of the set, when the band rocked out “So Long, Jimmy,” a tribute to Jim Morrison and Jimmy Hendrix, under green flashing circa-1970s lights, complete with strange dancing monkey.

It was the disturbing song “No Bravery.” Blunt took the piano and played sans band, as his homemade video of a war-torn Kosovo rolled silently in the background. The young Blunt, at the time a soldier for the British Army, had filmed the scenes of waving children, shallow graves and devastated buildings in 1999.

Yeah, I’ll say it. It was beautiful. It’s true.

In a ballsy move, or maybe the right one, he played a dozen songs, including two new ones, without touching the No. 1 hit during his original set. The band walked offstage from a stunned and screaming crowd, who proved their undying devotion to the beautiful British singer by flipping open their cell phones, raising the blue screens high above their heads and chanting “James, James, James!!” You can’t make this stuff up. But the band came back out, and closed the show with “You’re Beautiful.”

All in all, it was a solid show. He’s not a talentless hack, as some more established artists and music lovers like to say. He has the sappiness of Elliot Smith without the suicidal tendencies (I hope), and the breathiness and hook of early Leonard Cohen. His four-person band backed him up brilliantly, with the synth and electric guitar contributing a perfect edge to throaty, little-girl voice. Yes, the entire band was beautiful, and rocked the stage like they owned that little corner of new West Omaha.

Blunt is scheduled to continue touring through mid-April, and will play Sunday, April 30, in the main tent of the Coachella Valley Music & Arts Festival in Coachella, Ca.

Source: The Gateway