GIG NUMBER FIFTY-THREE
Who
Blur opened with Ambulance, before blowing us away with Beetlebum. We went insane and I had never realised how good that song was: no wonder it got to number one! The moshpit and crush then reached Ben Hur proportions with Girls & Boys, which was the undisputed highlight of the evening! Damon came into the crowd causing total insanity, and I spent most of the song looking up singing along with him. The "aah aah aah aah aah aah's" were brilliantly dispatched and hearing that introduction start up was most definitely amongst the top events of my year! Things were generally quieter from now on. Perhaps a bit too much so: Alex was even lying down at some points! Tender was outstanding with a guy from the band's three-man choir doing Graham's bit very effectively, but surprise wonderful moment was Advert from Modern Life Is Rubbish. By this point I'd been elbowed pretty far back from the stage but this meant I was able to mosh freely! Song 2 was good, but not as astonishing as I'd hoped, thanks to the fact I spent half the time trying to put the glasses back onto my face!
To The End was the definitive sing-along of the night, and Gene By Gene was excellent, as was Battery In Your Leg which formed a tribute of sorts to Graham. The main set was closed with a powerful rendition of The Universal before the band returned to play Sing which was the oldest tune in the set. I think it was during On The Way To The Club that I then decided to vacate the moshpit and get my coat back from the cloakroom, thinking they'd played all the good loud songs. So it was standing at the back that I heard We've Got A File On You, which I'd forgot all about! The main set was closed with This Is A Low and the applause was unlike any I'd heard before. I got myself a T-shirt from outside and left in an obscenely hyper mood. Shame there was no Country House, and it's fortunate for my sake that I didn't get drunk and spend the whole show heckling for it! Also missing were Crazy Beat (!), Music Is My Radar, Parklife, Charmless Man and There's No Other Way, but Blur had still done enough to show that, eight years on from their peak, they remain one of the greatest bands on Earth. If they never reform again then Think Tank will go down as a worthy if underrated way to close things off. Generally speaking this was my most exciting weekend of music since V2000, and I can't shower it with enough praise, although my friends who'd went off to see Muse still had the audacity to claim they'd seen the better band!
Mark: 9.0/10
Blur
Support
Adrian Sherwood
Where
Manchester Apollo
When
29th November 2003
Price
£20.00
Who with
No-one
Position
Towards the front, in the moshpit
Comments
What a weekend! I followed the mighty Half Man Half Biscuit by FINALLY getting to see the notoriously gig-shy Blur after a long, long eight years!! And they were pretty damn fine it must be said, although perhaps they could have been better. I arrived very early and managed to find my way very nearly to the front. First support was the very poor Adrian Sherwood, who was basically a fat guy pressing buttons with a rapper mumbling to himself and a dancer who sung a few times. The crowd reaction was a mix of indifference and dislike. A guy by me spent the whole of their set hilariously doing a thumbs down motion, causing the rapper to respond to him with a barely audible rap. I had to endure this for a long time. It wasn't so much awful as completely pointless. But, after waiting so long to see Blur, a shit support wasn't going to put me off!
Setlist
Ambulance
Beetlebum
Girls & Boys
Badhead
Good Song
Tender
Advert
Caravan
Brothers And Sisters
Colours
Song 2
To The End
Out Of Time
End Of A Century
Gene By Gene
Trimm Trabb
Battery In Your Leg
The Universal
Sing
For Tomorrow
On The Way To The Club
We've Got A File On You
This Is A Low
n.b. This isn't strictly in the correct order
