BUSTED TO PLAY WEMBLEY ARENA IN MARCH
Busted to Play Wembley Arena in March in Support of New Album
Source: Busted via Facebook.
Busted have announced the upcoming release of their fourth album, with a tour date at Wembley Arena following shortly after. This album takes the trio past the halfway point to the seventh album that was mooted in smash hit ‘Year 3000’, with Half Way There an apt title. Half Way There will be released on East West Records on February 8th, with a short UK tour concluding in London on March 30th.
This gig will be a far cry from the band’s performance at The 100 Club in October. Busted are still comprised of the same line-up that stormed into the UK music scene in 2002 (James Bourne, Charlie Simpson, Matt Willis), with the group commanding a passionate and significant fan base that can still fill arenas. The 100 Club presented Busted in an unusually intimate environment, an exclusive event that gave a select group of fans an insight into what the band are suggesting will be a return to their classic sound.
The new album’s lead single ‘Nineties’ pines for the titular decade. After the synths and effects of their big comeback album, 2016’s Night Driver, many expressed their desire for the trio to recapture the classic sounds that made Busted so popular. ‘Nineties’ achieves this in spades, placing guitars front and centre once again. Infectious melodies, ‘na-na-na’s’ and light-hearted lyrics also reassure fans that grew up with Busted that the band they once knew is truly back again.
Those lyrics are shrouded in nostalgic yearning, with references made to cultural touchstones of the nineties. Nirvana and Smashing Pumpkins both get a name-check, while The Goonies is referenced as a reason to skip school. The song will resonate firmly with a millennial generation that consider the nineties as halcyon days for many aspects of culture.
Busted thrilled a small crowd at The 100 Club. Source: Busted via Facebook.
It is not just Busted that are bringing the nineties into 2018, as classic games have returned with a vengeance. Sony are releasing a miniature PlayStation Classic featuring legendary titles, while Spyro has made a comeback in this year’s Reignited Trilogy. This extends into the world of casino games, with William Hill Games featuring a Worms Reloaded slot game that draws influence directly from the much-loved artillery game that was first released in 1995.
This demonstrates that there is a market receptive to Busted’s throwback sound, with the rest of the album slated to carry on in the same vein as ‘Nineties’. Admittedly, other tracks aren’t likely to be so overtly romantic towards the past, but the whimsical lyricism that popularised Busted looks set to return in songs with titles such as ‘Shipwrecked in Atlantis’ and ‘Race to Mars’.
After Busted’s brief time at the top which yielded two successful full-length albums and a string of hits, the band completely disappeared after Simpson’s public departure. Bourne and Willis returned in 2014 to form McBusted with friends McFly, some ten years after Busted’s last album. Yet fans never thought that Simpson would return to the relatively simplistic pop-punk of Busted after diving into the post-hardcore of Fightstar and the folk of a solo career.
However, fans only have to wait a few months before another Busted album (with guitars) arrives. Resisting the charms of Busted on the radio is one thing, but the group’s unwavering energy makes for an irrepressibly euphoric live show. For a night at Wembley Arena in March, a crowd can live like it is 2004 once again.
