BUSTED | LIVE REVIEW
Newport Centre, Thurs 9 Feb
Noughties pop-rock trio James, Matt and Charlie announced early in 2016 that they were reuniting, to the delight of the inner teenager inside all of us late-20s/early-30s fan girls. A packed Newport Centre welcomed in an old and new generation of excited fans. Not to be compared with their double-headliner tour from a few years back with not-so-rival band from back in the day McFly, this is less a tour of reminiscence and more an introduction to their new, ‘edgier’ and more ‘mature’, material.
Opening with tracks from new album Night Driver, Kids And Computers and On What You’re On had hints of the catchy hooks you would expect from a Busted song filtered through an 80s soft rock sound. The rising lull in the audience made it obvious this was not what the crowd was here for. However, Busted managed to win back their favour by jumping quickly into old favourite Air Hostess, ties wrapped around heads as bandanas: this is what you expected to see at a Busted gig.
After that little teaser, the trio revert to new stuff, a guest sax player coming and going. Busted have not only decided on trying out something new, they’ve dived into it all guns blazing – gone is the ‘teenage boys playing in their parents’ garage’ sound that made them famous. Yet it just felt a bit silly, out of place and more dated than their original material.
Nerves were sinking in for newly reconciled member Charlie Simpson, who seemed to forget his lyrics on several occasions. Always seen as the lead singer, Charlie left poor Matt and James high and dry back in 2004 when he elected to go it alone. Being a mere trio, they had no choice but to disband, ‘pop-rock duo’ not having quite the same ring to it. To the delight of the audience, though, Busted finished with an indulgent stroll down memory lane, finishing with all the golden oldies: Sleeping With The Light On, Crashed The Wedding and an encore of their debut hit What I Go To School For.
If you were to compare this with the hugely successful McBusted tour, chalk and cheese come to mind. It was low-budget and underwhelming in comparison. Still, all credit is due to a band known for their novelty pop-rock to tour under the alias of Busted, seemingly in the hope that we would now see them as something rather different.
words DENIECE CUSACK photos ARABELLA ITANI
