OneRepublic: Europe Tour 2023 14/06/2023

Where: OVO Arena Wembley – London, England (UK)

Venue rating: 5/10 (Horrific entry process… I only gave it a 5 because the sound quality was so good)

Who I went with: Paul!

Where we stayed: “Cosy Room in London Wembley” (A house-share place which was cute and full of personality but not very private)

How we travelled there: Plane, trains and the tube… We are dedicated

Beverage of choice: Water, mostly (It was a long day and we queued for hours)

SETLIST:

Secrets
Good Life
Stop And Stare
Rescue Me
Love Runs Out
Halo / Bleeding Love / Ghost / Burn / 10:35 / Rumour Has It / Sucker
RUNAWAY
I Ain’t Worried
Apologize
Life In Color (Live Debut)
I Lived (With Mishaal Tamer)
Counting Stars
If I Lose Myself

I have post-concert depression now. We were excited for this since we last saw OneRepublic in Glasgow early last year. I was really emotional during that concert and was talking 4x my regular speed all day leading up to it, in excitement. I immediately bought standing tickets once they were available. I was on holiday in Leicester at the time but made sure to set an alarm so I wouldn’t miss my chance to secure tickets. OneRepublic is one of the few bands Paul would happily agree to come see with me, so I was delighted to have company too. I had been daydreaming about this event for months, wondering how their new songs would sound live. I don’t know how they constantly tour and still find the time to record catchy new songs, like ‘I Ain’t Worried’ and ‘RUNAWAY’ (the highlights of this concert for me, aside from the surprise ‘Life In Color’). Someone online claimed the band are taking a break after this tour to spend time with their families and might not come back to the UK for a couple of years. I never trust anything I read online, even though that would make a lot of sense and would be perfectly understandable. If they only stick to US dates next year, I am definitely willing to travel.

Paul and I flew to London from Inverness and arrived the evening before the concert, since our morning flight had been cancelled. I was anxious they would cancel or delay our afternoon flight too, since I’d never experienced so many thunderstorms in our local area so many days in a row. There was a big black cloud looming near the airport and the pilot informed us it would become an issue if it drifted overhead. We took off before it swooped in to ruin our plans, luckily. Things usually work out alright in the end. Usually. We didn’t have a massive amount of time in London before tube-hopping to locate our “cosy room”. It was just one stop away from Wembley Stadium. I pleaded to stop at the Elton John pop-up shop “on the way” (it really was not on the way) to look around but the glasses were £150 each (much more expensive than they were on the website). I got a £25 gold and silver clutch bag, since I couldn’t exactly leave empty-handed! We dumped our stuff at the house-share and quickly freshened up before finding OVO Wembley and trying to over-hear Harry Styles, performing next door at Wembley Stadium. Unfortunately, all we could make out were the screams of his 80,000 fans… I was a bit disappointed, since apparently you could hear Ed Sheeran several miles away from Hampden.

I decided to queue from 9am, making this the longest I have queued for anyone/anything. I waited seven hours for twenty one pilots last year but it was already 12pm when I reached the venue and lots of people were already waiting. Paul and I were the first to arrive, closely followed by a handful of their most hardcore fans. We got the numbers “1” and “2” scribbled on our hands, so we could leave to get drinks/go to the toilet and come back. It was nice of the girls to come up with this idea but we agreed to never leave together, to be on the safe side. Trust no-one! It was hot and uncomfortable but we at least had the option of standing in the sun or cooling off in the shade. Everyone had been split between the North East and South East entrances. There was a lot of confusion regarding which door to wait at and we even ended up directing some fans to the other door. People didn’t start queuing at the SE entrance until about 12pm and, outrageously, they were all let in before us! By the time we got through the doors at 6pm, we had to fight our way through the crowd and sprint to get close to the barrier. I am extremely upset with the venue for this and will boycott it in the future. They also moaned at us for going through the “wrong” security gates, shouting “men only!” at me and trying to redirect Paul through a different one. This made no sense since there were far more women than men… And it’s 2023!

We ended up in the second row, behind people I made sure we would be able to see over. Being tall is useful sometimes. It could have been worse and I’m still glad we queued so early, as we would have ended up even further back. The badly organised entry process put a huge dampener on the night and it still stings when I think about it. There were girls blocking off the centre of the barrier, waiting for the rest of their friends to arrive. This whole thing should definitely be more fairly controlled and actions like that shouldn’t be allowed. The staff didn’t seem aware of the situation at all and were yelling at us to slow down when we were running towards the stage to claim the spots we deserved after waiting all that time. We talked to a girl and her mum who also had issues getting in with being pushed around etc. They made it to the barrier but said they have already moved down a few inches from constantly being pushed further away. It was very refreshing to meet level-headed fans and they restored my faith in humanity quite a bit.

The first opening act was Mishaal Tamer. I wasn’t familiar with him before I saw OneRepublic announce he was opening for them on Twitter. I’ve discovered so many new artists from going to all these events. I assumed there would be only one starter act because of the Twitter post but there were two. They were both very enjoyable though, so I can’t complain. I thought they were a better fit than the artists they had for Glasgow, though we are fans of Greg Pearson now and hope to see him again. My attention usually drifts by the second act but that didn’t happen this time around. I did continue to be a ball of rage until OneRepublic took to the stage and made me forget my troubles for a while, though. MT told us he was very happy to be here as it was his first time performing outside of his home country, Saudi Arabia. His microphone unfortunately stopped working during one of his early songs, so he took a moment to chat with us while they fixed it again. He said his mum was in the audience and reminisced about how OneRepublic was a big inspiration to him since they were the first rock band to ever perform in Saudi Arabia. It was fun to see/hear how much of an impact they had on him and his energy was contagious. He seems like a genuinely nice guy and his songs are very catchy, too. I personally liked ‘CIGARETTE’ the best. It is his new single, if I remember correctly. The sun is going to my head.

Tom Gregory came on next and his songs were very enjoyable too. They weren’t a completely different style from MT’s or OneRepublic’s, so he did a brilliant job of opening the show and keeping us entertained. He effectively warmed up the crowd and got us even more hyped for OneRepublic. He told us he is from Blackpool and explained his song about a summer holiday (I think) was inspired by the city. It made me want to visit it again. I need to eventually face my fear and get around to riding “The Big One” at Blackpool Pleasure Beach. Someone should write a song about that. He and MT had a good stage presence and you could tell the two of them genuinely wanted to be there and really enjoy what they do. OneRepublic thanked them both for opening for them and said it is the hardest job in the world (behind being a comedian) because people aren’t necessarily there to hear your music and might not know any/many of your songs. It must be intimidating, right enough. They don’t always get extremely positive reactions but there were a good number of fans of their music in the crowd, which was evidenced by them loudly singing along.

We enjoyed seeing them set up the stage for OneRepublic and watching the piano get polished to an inch of its life in preparation. I adored the use of the cover art for ‘West Coast’ on the drum kit and the similarly themed “Crew” t-shirts the members of staff were wearing as they made sure everything was in working order. I’d chosen to wear my ‘West Coast’ t-shirt Paul got me for my birthday last year but knew there was little to no chance of them performing it this time around. We were lucky enough to have heard it live in Glasgow, so I wasn’t too sad about not experiencing it again. I was much more interested in hearing their newer releases for the first time. We had the privilege of hearing them perform ‘RUNAWAY’ a few times during the soundcheck at around 2pm, so I was delighted to know we would be getting that one! ‘I Ain’t Worried’ was practically a given after all of the success it has garnered since being featured in the hugely popular new ‘Top Gun’ movie.

They opened with ‘Secrets’ this time around. It’s difficult to predict which song they will do first. They always seem to end on ‘Counting Stars’ and ‘If I Lose Myself’, though. They mainly stick to their biggest hits but sometimes throw a rarity or two in. I didn’t realise this was the beginning of a brand new tour, since it wasn’t too long ago they were doing their ‘Never Ending Summer Tour’ in the US. Like I said, they seem to always be touring. I grabbed a tour t-shirt once we tracked down a merch stall at the end and was delighted they still had some mediums left. They didn’t have any ‘RUNAWAY’ t-shirts left by this point but I would have gone for their tour t-shirt anyway. The ‘RUNAWAY’ cap was the same price as the t-shirt at £35, so I decided against it. London is written on the back of the t-shirt as the first show of the tour and Newport is second. They aren’t doing any more shows in the UK this summer but have plenty lined up in Germany, as always. There was also a sweatshirt for about £60 but I couldn’t make out the artwork. I’ll need to have another look on the website, out of curiosity. Like last year, they displayed a QR code where they uploaded official photos to after the event. I downloaded them and ordered a t-shirt featuring one of the photos. It’s coming from the US, so I have no idea when it will arrive or how much custom tax I’ll have to pay. But it will be worth it!

RT chatted a lot between songs and I love it because he’s always got funny and interesting things to say. One of the first things he joked about was how he specifically asked to have a show at Wembley the same night as either Ed Sheeran or Harry Styles. Everyone laughed, though it must have been pretty frustrating for the band. The show sold-out in the end anyway, which is fantastic news. He explained in an interview afterwards that he didn’t find out Harry Styles was performing next door until the day before but it actually made him feel better because they managed to sell all the tickets regardless. He also admitted it might not have been the brightest idea to kick-start the tour in one of the biggest cities in the world (London) but they wanted to do it in front of a crowd they were comfortable with. He said some of us might not have seen them for a while or at all, while four of five others probably mistook this for a One Direction concert. He said he loves those people anyway and he got their money, so it’s all good.

He also discussed how they are coming up to their 17 year anniversary of being a band and how they wouldn’t be here without the influence of British musicians. They put together a 10-15 minute medley of songs RT has written which were popular in the UK, starting off with Beyonce’s ‘Halo’, which he called ‘A love letter to Jay-Z’. There have been complaints online about the medley, as people say they only wanted to hear OneRepublic songs. I like the medley but I suppose I get where people are coming from. It’s still nice to hear RT singing the songs he is proud of, even if I’m not the biggest fan of some of the artists he has written for. I also hope to hear some OneRepublic “deep cuts” at future shows. ‘Halo’ is one of my favourite songs, so its absence would be sad. It showcases his impressive vocal range and the singalong never fails to get everyone involved. RT did say something along the lines of ‘I hope this is okay? I know you are here to see OneRepublic’, so he is probably aware of the minor backlash. We really enjoyed this section, as we hadn’t experienced the medley before. I especially loved his gorgeous rendition of ‘Ghost’, which was new to us. It’s nice to see him get the recognition he deserves for writing so many popular songs for well-known artists. He said Beyonce actually called him up and asked him to write a song for her since she likes what he does and he told us singers never do that, so it was a surreal experience for him.

It was quite a short set list but the medley helped fill it out. It’s difficult to pick my favourite song from the night but I think it must have been ‘I Ain’t Worried’ since it got a lot of attention in the last year and I absolutely loved the “jam session” towards the end of the song, which was added in for the live version and reminded me of the part in ‘Gravitational’ by Tom Chaplin where the lighting goes crazy and the band rocks out. I thought it was the most immersive song of the bunch and I stopped feeling self-conscious around that point. ‘Life in Color’ was the most magical part of the night, in my opinion. I was thrilled to hear they tailored this show to the UK and put this song in especially for it, learning it on the day. RT said they recorded it in London in one of his favourite recording studios – the famous Metropolis Studios, if I heard him correctly. Not everyone knew the song, as it isn’t on every version of ‘Native’. I’m sure he said it’s the first time they have ever performed it live, which makes the performance even more special. It was a pretty/stripped back version of the song and everyone was listening intently. Mishaal Tamer was brought out to sing ‘I Lived’ alongside RT but I think his microphone was having issues again as I couldn’t make him out at the time or when I re-listened to the concert on YouTube. Somebody actually stood and filmed the entire thing. I wouldn’t have the patience or energy for that, so fair play to them.

I got my “high five” from RT at the end of the night during ‘If I Lose Myself’, as I was thankfully close enough to the barrier. I said I would try and forget about all the negative aspects of the night if I managed to get my high five and I did, so I’ll hold on tight to the positive memories. We saw them again at the Isle of Wight Festival a couple of days later, which I will write about too. They stand out from other bands for me because of their high energy, consistently upbeat/fantastic songs and the hilarious things RT comes out with. It makes such a difference when the artists make the effort to communicate with the fans. He said to us Brian Willett (who plays the keyboard and has a talent for whistling that is impossible to comprehend) is Canadian, which makes him about one quarter British somehow. Another couple of highlights were when he called the cello a “weird upside down bass” (Paul and I are always discussing the cello when watching their performances so maybe it was even funnier to us) and when he said the band didn’t come from money before double-checking with them first – he said “I’m just looking at the band” to make sure what he said was right but I misheard him and thought he said “I mean, just look at the band!” which would have been savage.

I’m already looking forward to seeing them again but I don’t know when that will be. I will either stick to seated venues or ones with only one entrance, where they won’t muck you around. I’m not angry (anymore), I’m just disappointed! I’m eagerly anticipating the new songs they will inevitably release before I see them again. They just keep getting better and better.

GALLERY: