At the beginning of this year, actor and singer Ben Barnes released his debut album Where The Light Gets In, so it’s the perfect time for him to go on tour through Europe in February. He brought along a handful of talented musicians to accompany him during his set, but three of them also act as support acts.
Zoe Sparks starts her set on guitar, singing about 5 of her own indie pop songs, and after those is quickly followed up by Sophia James on keys and guitar, making great use of a loop station to give her songs more layers. Third up is Charles Jones on keys, singing a mix of his own songs with covers. All three prove to be excellent musicians in their own right, and it’s such a fun idea to give each of the band members their own spotlight as supporting acts and letting them shine in their own right. The night might carry Ben Barnes’s name, but he wouldn’t be anywhere without them and Barnes doesn’t let us forget throughout the evening how much he appreciates them.
When Ben Barnes enters the stage, you can immediately tell tonight’s energy is filled with good vibes, and the positivity of his music and his personality really shines through in the entire set.
Over the course of the night, he takes a lot of time to interact with them, including a small game for merch if they guess what movie the quote “life moves pretty fast, if you don’t stop and look around once in a while, you might miss it” comes from, and even the wrong guess gets a consolation prize. During the first song (“Beloved”), the crowd also held out paper stars with the text “you are beloved” on them, which shows how much love is returned to Barnes from the crowd as well.
He proves he doesn’t just have a great soulful voice, but he’s also taking place behind the drums and piano during a couple songs, proving he’s multi talented besides acting (he’s known for TV roles in Shadow & Bone, Narnia and Westworld) and singing. He continues giving a spotlight to all band members during different songs, with Zoe Sparks singing a part of the Bishop Briggs’ cover “River,” guitarist Aaron Childs gets his own guitar solo and Sophia James sings a duet with Ben on “One Minute More.”
Since he just released his debut album, he also treats the crowd to a couple more covers, with John Lennon’s “Jealous Guy” and Elton John’s “Bennie & The Jets.” Barnes manages to make the evening last almost 3 hours in total, getting every fan completely satisfied by the end.
The European leg of this tour continues for the rest of February, before he travels to Los Angeles for the postponed show there, on March 5th. Tickets for the remaining shows can be found on https://benbarnes.komi.io.
GALLERY: Ben Barnes with Zoe Sparks, Sophia James and Charles Jones at Tivoli in Utrecht, Netherlands (February 19, 2025)
