As Jack Dunn is announced as the opening performer for the Universal Music Awards 2026, the arena lights drop instantly to black putting the entirety of the Crypto.com Arena into darkness before a spotlight hits center stage to reveal Dunn standing with an electric guitar strapped over his shoulders. Before the tapping of drumsticks from behind him can be heard which signals Jack and his backing band to dive straight into the song. The opening guitar riff is gently plucked while the rhythm guitar, bass guitar and drums sit comfortably in the background to flesh out the music but not overwhelm it. Dunn, wearing a red t-shirt and bomber jacket stands front and center with his band behind him as he allows the music to set a tone before stepping a touch closer to the microphone as his voice enters into the equation, warm and conversational as he delivers the opening lyrics to his recent single, “Coastline”;

“We met as kids and grew up in these nowhere towns
Spent days down on the coastline where the land surrenders and gives up the fight
Concrete pavements slowly thinning into the sand
Where it always felt like the sea was breathing in slow motion
Just like it knew something we didn’t yet understand
And you laughed at the gulls like they were hecklers, teasing from above
Just watching the horizon blink and bruise
Felt like there was importance in every sentence you spoke
Like truth had learned your accent too”

The simplicity of the arrangement allows every word to land clearly, Dunn enunciating a little more than he maybe would usually but maintaining his strong northern English accent while he stands motionless with the exception of the subtle rhythmic picking of his hand against his guitar strings. He occasionally glances at the image in front of him in the room, but primarily keeps his focus on delivering the track on the biggest stage of his career up to this point. The screen behind him eventually lights up with images of coastal imagery from his hometown that the song centres on, washed-out greys and pale blues as his lyrics paint the image that you begin to see on the screen behind him. It’s not warm golden colours that you’d find on the coastline in California just a thirty minute drive from the venue. It shows a gritty beauty in the world that Jack himself comes from.

As the song moves into it’s first pre-chorus, the guitar grows slightly more rhythmic as the emotional weight in the lyrics deepen as Dunn leans into the autobiographical storytelling tension at the heart of the track. The pre-chorus gives the song it’s emotional push-back as Dunn considers his own flaws in running from things that are real combined with his own ambitions of being a travelling musician. While the pre-chorus adds the conflict element, the chorus drives and passionately showcases the realisation and admittance that there’s something about that place which pulls him back in every time;

“I’d spent years learning how to leave
Packing light, always half-gone
But there was something in the way you stood there
Made running feel like I was doing this wrong

I know I fell in love on the coastline
Where the wind strips you honest and bare
With your Timbs full of sand and your eyes fixed on the tide
Like you trusted it’d always come back there
If I’d have known love would have remained from standing still long enough
Then I’d have packed in all of my wildest dreams
I fell in love on the coastline
Between those waves and the in-betweens”



The chorus arrives naturally, blooming rather than bursting into life, the melody builds and opens up as some of the crowd begin to sing along instinctively, turning parts of the multi-cultural audience into a mini Geordie sing-along which in itself raises a slight smile on Dunn’s face as he sings passionately into the microphone while rhythmically hitting the strings of his guitar. The build up to the chorus brings a moment that will no doubt live long in the mind of Jack Dunn, still relatively new to this environment as he sits on the precipice of his debut album dropping.

As the second verse begins, the drums feel slightly more urgent and the rhythm guitar takes a moment to bridge the gap between chorus to verse, adding depth without overwhelming the intimacy of the song. Dunn once more appears unfazed by the size of the moment, delivering the lyrics with a quiet nostalgia, his voice steady and tinged with reflection as he once more paints vivid pictures of a place that feels a million miles from where he is right now.

“We could talk about nothing and yet it all mattered
There wasn’t anything we wouldn’t say
Picked out a beachfront house from across the pier
Dreams we no longer share together, but those dreams still remain
You said the sea would keep our secrets
Secrets that we could always return to someday
I thought about all the versions of me since
I’d let them all sink without a wave”

Another brief pre-chorus and chorus combination follows, this time Dunn briefly pulls back from the microphone, allowing the moment to belong to the room, those that are familiar enough with the track at least. Before the song enters it’s final verse, the instrumentation remains relatively minimal, placing Dunn and his guitar very much front and centre. His vocal delivery grows more fragile as the song demands, the acceptance in the lyrics of the reality of the outcome, the allowance of love dissipating contrasted with the imagery of the seas lack of fragility and how it serves as a constant reminder of the things that have washed away from his own life. He allows the lyrics to sit heavy in the arena;

“I was scared of the day that the tide turned
Always felt like the day would come when the storm made the news
Man, It felt like loving something I couldn’t protect
From time, or truth, or you
But the sea doesn’t promise forever
It just shows up without relent
And maybe love’s not as insistent as that
But there was always the choice to stay when you can”

As the final pre-chorus and chorus combination returns to close the performance, the song ending not with spectacle but with a tender connection, the audience remain relatively silent during the songs final chorus as Dunn strums the final chords and lets it ring out into the vast venue in front of him. The final note fades, and for a brief moment the arena is completely still before erupting into applause. Dunn gives a small nod of appreciation, a quiet smile crossing his face, before stepping back from the microphone having opened the Universal Music Awards without grandeur and ego, but with honesty and raw emotion in a song that lingers long after the lights come back up.

“Next up is the award for ‘Favourite Touring Artist’, previous winners of this award are Kara Romero and Sígrun, although there are only two nominees for the category this time around it certainly looks like next years ceremony already appears to be likely to be a much more stacked category. The nominees for ‘Favourite Touring Artist’ are;

Orion – World Tour [2025]

Jadyn Ghalen – No Pressure, No Diamonds World Tour [2025]

Either way Jadyn Ghalen is taking an award home in this category, but the outright winner for ‘Favourite Touring Artist’ is …

“Onto the next one and we have a traditionally stacked category for ‘Band/Duo/Group of the Year’. Previous winners Voodoo Dolls and Orion are no longer active, so we will have a completely new name in the winners bracket for this award. There’s six very strong nominees and they are;

Atomic War Bride

Midnight20

BabyCrush

Face2Face

Crescendo

Weekend

I’m sure you’ll agree that it’s a stacked category this year and we’re already pretty certain that next year, it looks like it could be an even more stack category. But the winner for ‘Band/Duo/Group of the Year’ is …