Blue are still running the game after two decades with hit after hit. The boys are back on tour to celebrate 20 years of their Greatest Hits with a new single called 'My City'. 

We got to sit down with Simon Webbe, Duncan James, Lee Ryan, and Antony Costa to talk about the last twenty years, the upcoming tour, being Dads and so much more!

Blue! We are so honored to have you as our cover stars! How has 2024 been for you?

It’s been a really great year so far, we’ve been playing to fans all around the world and things are great at the moment. It’s really good to get out to all these countries again, you appreciate it even more at this stage in your career.

You’re currently on ‘The Greatest Hits Tour’ where you’ve already performed around Europe! How was that? Do you have a favorite memory of performing in these places?

We’ve been playing a lot of shows, but the Greatest Hits tour actually kicked off in Italy just before the UK shows – Italy is great for us, it always was, but they’ve welcomed us back with such enthusiasm this time around it’s incredible! So many sold out shows.

You’re now about to tour in your home country the United Kingdom performing at venues such as The London Palladium, Royal Concert Hall in Nottingham and so many more. How excited are you about this?

Really excited about it – we love playing theatres as although they are still big shows, we also get to do a more intimate show you know and tell a few stories and anecdotes from over the years.

What’s your favorite song to sing live?

We all have different ones, All Rise is going to be pretty special on this tour with what we have planned, but also tracks like Riders that just work so well live and the fans love.

You also announced last year that you had an extra date added to the tour at the London Palladium due to overwhelming demand! Congratulations! How did this make you feel?

We were pretty shocked to be honest! The Palladium is such an iconic venue, so doing 3 nights in a row is really special for us.

You’ve been around for over 20 years now. What would you say are the highlights of your career so far?

Well, All Rise will always be such a big moment as it all just happened so fast and it was like riding a wave.  Then our first number 1 with Too Close... winning the first Brit Award was crazy too – no one told us, so we were a bit shocked. Getting to work with Elton John was a dream come true for us too as a band. He was incredible.

Seeing 2000s pop groups return such as S Club, Girls Aloud, Sugababes, Steps, and many more. Is there a group you would love to see return to the limelight?

 Oh erm.. maybe the original Nsync? They had some pretty good tracks back in the day.

There were a lot of girl groups, boy bands, and mixed groups back then. So many! These days you don’t see many groups. Why do you think that is?

Music trends are always changing... you get a load of girl bands..then boy bands.. then it’ll be singer songwriters or dance music. Things always come around again.  Although a lot of these bands come from or are inspired by TV shows like the X Factor and times change. These days anyone can create music and things like TikTok mean there are different ways of getting it out there to fans.

What would you say is different this time round in the band to what it was twenty years ago?

Ah.. well we are all a bit older, so our rider these days is full of things like ginger and fresh mint and hot water.. no alcohol! I suppose we were a bit more rock and roll back in the day..!  We’ve all got kids now and in our ‘40’s so you can’t stay up all night anymore and expect to be able to sing the next day.  It’s not better or worse, it’s just different.

When you’re not on tour what do you get up to in your free time?

We’ve got a lot of kids between us, so much of that time is spent with them being Dad. But also we all have our own solo projects and interests, from acting, to making music, presenting TV shows, keeping fit and just trying to enjoy life. We’re very grateful we get to do all this again but it’s more of a balance now. It has to be.

Now, will we be getting any new music from Blue this year?

Well.. if you listen closely on this tour, there is a new track.. won’t say too much about it you’ll have to wait and see! But if you guys want more, then we’ll make more.  We are always creating and it’s just getting us all together to record, but when we do we love it.

Lastly, if you had the opportunity to ReVamp anything in the world. What would it be and why?

Our bodies probably... haha! We have a few creaky knees and backs between us. You take things for granted when you are in your ‘20’s, surviving on a few hours sleep a night.  Sleeping anywhere when you’re on the road, working 18 hour days ..but now you have to take care of yourselves a little more.