Live Recap: James Blake at The Aragon Ballroom
James Blake returned to Chicago to play a headlining show to a packed Aragon Ballroom, returning to the city for the first time since his festival set at Re:SET in June.
Blake took his place at his station onstage, surrounded by a keyboard and synthesizer, and joined by two other live bandmates—one of who goes by the alias Airhead and had opened up the show.
To kick off the show, Blake and his band performed “Asking To Break” and “I Want You To Know” from his latest album Playing Robots Into Heaven. Before playing the third song of the evening, Blake told the audience they were a sight for sore eyes, and joked “We’ll play a little bit of everything, but we’ve only got six hours.” With the third song of the setlist, we pivoted back to one of the singer’s tried and true songs that he performs; a cover of “The Limit To Your Love” by Feist. Blake makes the cover his own with a signature bass drop after the first chorus, and in a live setting, the bass was so intense and visceral that it shook both the floor and my body.
From there, Blake continued to weave between the newer material and some of the hits from his earlier discography, like “Life Round Here” and “Retrograde,” which were both clear fan favorites. Blake also took some time to express his gratitude to the audience for being receptive to his newer music, which he described as being “bouncier”—and some of the new songs definitely gave off more a club vibe than a concert ballroom vibe. The most impressive part of the show had to be that Blake and his band created all of the sounds live, rather than playing from a track. “I always wanted to play electronic music, but I wanted to play it in a band,” he told the crowd.
Near the end of the set, we got some stripped back moments of Blake solo at the piano for a cover of “Godspeed” by Frank Ocean and his 2021 single “Say What You Will.”
If you get the chance to catch the Playing Robots Into Heaven tour, you’re guaranteed to be awed by James Blakes live interpretation of his electronic-leaning tracks, intertwined with some simpler piano-driven moments. See where you can catch the tour next here, and check out photos of the evening below.
