Olly Murs, burst onto the M&S Arena stage, Liverpool on Tuesday night surrounded by an impressive plethora of white flower displays (including his backdrop) in keeping with the theme of weddings with his suitability titled tour Marry Me.
This was a much anticipated tour. He didn’t tour the year before COVID then the pandemic hit and finally, his scheduled May date had to be postponed due to Liverpool hosting the Eurovision on behalf of Ukraine.
Murs attracted friendly boos and banter when he announced to the mostly wedding-veil wearing female audience that he was the happiest he had ever been mainly due to marrying Amelia Tank four weeks ago. He displayed photos of them, talked about her … a lot, even had her appearing in his backdrop videos. The friendly boos continued when he explained his tour name and new album was inspired after finding true and lasting love. There were many cheers from his hardcore fans who were clearly heartbroken, when he explained he had not seen his new wife for over two weeks.
Murs was his usual cheesy self on a number of occasions and was highly cringy and often insincere. He dedicated Sweet Caroline to his friend Caroline Flack who took her own life and whilst this was a lovely thing to do and say, his fake tears emanated through to the audience. He pretended to cry on stage after his monologue then quickly snapped into his cheesy entertainment persona during the opening beat. Unfortunately, the spiel and timing of his crocodile tears are part of his staged routine at every concert! Surely, he and his management know that fans often attend more than one concert on a tour and this will become apparent. It’s so said that Olly felt the need to behave like this which resulted in any credibility being lost. Personally, I found this false and disrespectful not only to Caroline but any of the audience members who may have experienced such a tragedy as Olly dedicated this song to their loved one too.
His backing band and singers were superb. They entertained and supported Olly throughout the concert. Their collective musical talent, harmonies and dancing served to compliment Olly’s uniquely nasal tones. Olly’s promo states that this is his ‘most consistent, most ambitious, punchiest, poppiest – and in places, proudly soppiest – album/concert yet.’ He was good however by far his enormous ego far outweighs his talent in my opinion. He seems to believe his own hype and the arrogant reassurance he constantly sought from the audience was simply… immature. He asked on numerous occasions if the audience still loves and fancies him now he is married? Combining this with his thrusting against the microphone and gyrating, just looked, well… cringy!
Ollly was supported by the talented and energetic pop band Scouting For Girls who warmed up the crowd expertly.
Overall, This was a value for money concert as the ticket prices were below average price.
Set list: Marry Me/ I’m Still Standing, Best Night Of your Life, You Don’t Know Love, Kiss Me/Watermelon Sugar, Right Place right Time, I Found Her, Thinking Of Me, Sweet Caroline, Dear Darlin’, I hate You When You’re Drunk, Heart Skips A Beat, We Found Love, Wrapped Up, Dancing On Cars, Celebration/YMCA/Blame It On The ?Boogie/Don’t Stop Beliving/Sex On Fire/I Want It that Way/Dancing On The Ceiling.
Encore: Troublemaker
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The Broken Spine is a poetry and arts collective proudly published on the coastal edge of North-West England. Founded in 2019 by Alan Parry and Paul Robert Mullen – two school friends reunited after twenty years through a mutual love of poetry.
