Yungblud’s Danforth Music Hall concert on Sunday night was a serious underplay. Sold out in minutes, the 28-year-old rising saviour of rock ‘n’ roll — long encouraged by the late Ozzy Osbourne and recent collaborators Aerosmith — didn’t move the Toronto show to a bigger venue but also went online imploring fans not to buy “extortion” resale tickets.
“They are completely against what this family stands for. There is a bigger plan in place. There is a bigger announcement coming,” the Yorkshire, U.K. singer-guitarist, whose real name is Dominic Harrison, said in an Instagram post in July.
That takes a lot of restraint by his fans — the Yungblud Army as they’re called — to not break the bank to see the guy whose music speaks to a new generation of outsiders who don’t get what they’re needing from, say, a Sabrina Carpenter or Tate McRae or Dua Lipa, or anyone in the pop world.
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Oriana Sawicki couldn’t let the opportunity to see him in a 1,400 capacity venue slip by. While the charismatic musician has played Toronto before, since his 2018 debut album, 21st Century Liability, his July appearance at Black Sabbath’s farewell concert, in which he blew people away with his version of the ballad “Changes,” and again on the recent MTV Video Music Awards, have been rocket launchers for his career and profile. Sawicki told Now Toronto she paid more than $500 without blinking an eye (tickets were regularly $55).
She is committed. Earlier in the day she went to Kops Records to see if she could catch a glimpse of him at the sold-out autograph signing for 150 people, located just doors away from the Danforth Music Hall. Only those who pre-purchased a vinyl copy of his new album Idols got to meet him. Sawicki said someone kindly told her to wait at the backdoor of the store and he would come out.
“He gave us a few minutes. He signed a bunch of autographs. He was such a sweetheart. He told us he loved us. I asked him explicitly if I could have a hug from him. He opened his arms and he’s like, ‘Come here, love’ and he gave me a big hug, I kissed him on the cheek, and then I asked him if he could sign my arm. And he did.
“Also, I made a sign for him, a big pink one. On one side, it said, ‘Thank you, Yungblud,’ and on the other side, it said, ‘Conquer Canada.’ I asked if I could give it to him, and he looked so happy. He’s like, ‘Of course.’”
She calls the experience “f**king life changing, man.” Her brother, Dorian, immediately looked up the closest tattoo shop and off they went to Colibri Tattoo to make the signature eternal. “I’ll never not love Yungblud,” she said.
His 90-minute set which began with “Hello Heaven, Hello” and included “Funeral” — the 2022 song for which Ozzy and wife Sharon appear in the music video — and “Changes,” which he dedicated to Osbourne — plus his other songs about feeling like you don’t fit in or struggling with self-esteem and anxiety, like “Fleabag,” “Lowlife” and “Loner,” and brand new collab with Aerosmith, “My Only Angel.”
As a frontman, he had unrestrained energy, like the most fun aerobics instructor you could ever have to fulfill your fitness goals, getting the class to jump, wave their arms overhead, and pump the air with “hey heys,” as he bounded and strutted about the stage, bare-chested and drenched from dousing himself with water and working up a sweat, with knowing nods to Mick Jagger and Steven Tyler.
So, was the hefty ticket price worth it? “Yes — and more. I could die now. I mean, look at me,” she screamed, “My hair was straight when I got here,” referring to the sweat causing it to curl.
Melly Fox, whose mother was there with her, and saw Yungblud two weeks ago in Ottawa, bought tickets to see him again this Tuesday (Sept. 23) at Niagara Falls’ OLG Stage, where at least a third of the tickets went up on the resale market within minutes. “It’s her 56th birthday on that day, and we have a hotel booked. We bought four tickets. The whole family is going,” Fox said.
Yungblud is so dead against resale, he even started his own low-cost music festival called BludFest in the U.K. which his team plans to expand. Until then, he’s going on tour in Europe in October.
However, two months after his announcement of this “bigger plan in place,” for North America, it hasn’t happened yet, but at the end of his show, he said, “Thank you from the bottom of my foookin’ heart. I promise I will come back to Toronto every year until I am dead,” adding, “This tour has blown my mind.” He then added, “This is our last song. I’ll be saying hello to everybody at the bus 45 minutes after the gig.”
It was raining and his fans waited. To be sure, he expanded the Yungblud Army.
