Busted bring the Scarborough OAT season 2024 and their reunion tour to a raucous close

★★★★★ (5/5)

BUSTED PERFORMING AT T.K. MAXX PRESENTS SCARBOROUGH’S OPEN AIR THEATRE
PHOTOCREDIT: JOHN HAYHURST

Can’t quite believe Busted are over 20 years old, if anything makes you feel really ancient it is when a band you still think of as relatively current announce a Greatest Hits twentieth anniversary reunion tour. Which is what they did last year and then due to demand, they extended further into 2024, including a set at Download Festival where they solidified their metal chops and went down incredibly well with the heavy music punters there.

Tonight, they are not only concluding this tour, but they close season 2024 of ‘TK Maxx presents’ at the wonderful Scarborough Open Air Theatre, so it needs to be a bit special. We are crammed in as this is another sell out performance with fans all donning their tour shirts, one guy - I think his name is Jan, is celebrating his 29th Busted show tonight wearing a full wedding dress (Crashed the Wedding?).

First though the main support is Skinny Living from Wakefield and whilst I’m enjoying their more laid back lounge sounds, it is hardly the right fit for a Busted show. They are releasing their debut album in October this year, so plugged a fair bit of that through their set.

To announce the arrival of Busted to Scarborough we get a mash up of Eminem’s ‘Lose Yourself’ followed by AC/DC’s ‘Thunderstruck’. The band appear casually walking on stage, no smoke and mirrors or special effects tonight, looks like Charlie has had a new haircut to celebrate.

They start with ‘Air Hostess’, Matt and James running around and Charlie staying close to the mic for the time being. Matt is definitely wide-eyed and making faces at everyone, I think he misses the runway the band had for their arena shows last year.

They did say that the last time they played the venue there was a lake in front of the stage and the crowd were so far away. The lake was partly filled in for the 2017 re-launch which gave a bigger standing area and raised the capacity to 8000. They love the new set up as they can get real close to their fans.

What we received was a well produced set of their greatest hits which appear on their No1 album (Greatest Hits 2.0) which includes ‘MMMBop’. They toured with the brothers Hanson in 2023 and performed that together – no sign of any special guests tonight though as they romp through that with the crowd in full voice.

There was room for a new(ish) song ‘Good One’ which fitted in well with the classics, and they jokingly upped the age of their teacher Miss McKenzie by twenty years in the lyrics to ‘What I Go To School For’. “So she may be 53, but that doesn’t bother me”.

We also get the cheesy pop of ‘Thunderbirds’ after they make jokes about the film failing. Some of the hits had a heavier workout, particularly ‘3am’ and ‘You said No’ where Charlie proved he can still hit the high notes and play some mean guitar. They celebrate Jan’s 29th show with that and the next tune - ‘Crashed The Wedding’, but not before Matt declares how overwhelmed they have been with the support for this reunion, and the biggest tour they have ever done. It feels like they could deliver more of the same over the next few years as they are all in a great place right now.

As they left the stage to the biggest cheer, returning quickly to take us back to the ‘Year 3000’. Another crowd pleasing rowdy run through of that track – it is over too soon, but they had played everything tonight! “If you still want us then we will be back” they cried, a full Scarborough Open Air Theatre definitely wanted some of that. Rather than a closure of their tour, this could be the start of a new chapter in Busted’s story.

A great night to end another fantastic season and we look forward to what 2025 has in store for this jewel of a Yorkshire venue.