GIG NUMBER ONE HUNDRED AND TWENTY-SIX
Who
Now I feel compelled to make a few comments about Glastonbury, with particular reference to the organisers and the headliners. Blur had hinted that they'd be cutting down on the Wolverhampton setlist to fit in with tight "festival" restrictions but at their world-beating Glasto performance they played exactly the same songs. Maybe they played a bit faster and more crazily to get everything shoehorned in but it was a good sign that Hyde Park would be treated to the full Blur experience. Glastonbury is always a huge musical talking point and I hope Blur will be remembered as nominees for the greatest headliners ever. It certainly didn't help publicise their case when the increasingly senile bearded git Michael Eavis proclaimed Neil Young and Bruce Springsteen as his best headliners ever, not even bothering to mention Blur before predictably saying that Glasto was the "best ever" yet again! I have no qualms about laying into him as all he seems to get is blind adulation from everyone else. I'm sure he has very little to do with the good stuff in the line-up as he seems to believe the festival is just a little sideline to Worthy being a cow farm, which is hardly likely if he really cared about good music. This is further evidenced by the fact he only seemed to come out to watch the laughable Tom Jones! Plus Neil Young has no songs that any man in the street would recognise, even having to resort to covering A Day In The Life by The Beatles for his finale as he had no tunes of his own big enough to fill the moment. Maybe he's alright but, hell, he shouldn't be headlining! Bruce Springsteen on the other hand is beneath contempt. Firstly he'd never even heard of Glasto, which shows amazing ignorance, secondly he only has one song that the man in the street knows and, most significantly, he played for over two hours, leaving the organisers to foot a bill for his overrunning and he still couldn't be fucked to play Born In The U.S.A! I don't care what else he did, this was disgraceful, and any review of his shows which doesn't focus entirely on this disgusting omission is condoning his arrogance and making him think he can continue to do it. In a fair world someone like Bruce Springsteen wouldn't have the fame to play anywhere larger than the Civic and even then I hope he'd get bottled and spat at if he dared to leave out his hit! On the other hand Status Quo sounded very good but unfairly received the bad reviews which should have been directed at Bruce whereas Spinal Tap were as entertaining as I'd imagined.
I promise I'll start reviewing events surrounding the Blur show now I've given adequate space to discuss the things that made me angry and sad in the monumental eight days since Blur's Civic show. I'll even give just a passing reference to the fact I was offered my first job interview in a month on the very day of Blur. I've conservatively calculated a 1 in 500 chance of my luck in job hunting being so awful but I'm used to it. It's amazing I remain so optimistic, happily setting out from home at 11am in the confidence I'd arrive well in time to see Blur without mishap. We checked into our super cheap hotel in Wembley in reasonable time after travelling on the slow trains and stopping for a huge Wetherspoons lunch. Take That were playing Wembley on the nights before and after so we were lucky our show slotted in the middle and thanks to my knowledge of London it was nice to avoid the rip-off city centre hotels. It was the first time I'd seen the completed Wembley stadium and it looks impressive but I'm sure it will seem even better when the building work around it is finished. It was a crazily hot day but we didn't try for the hotel swimming pool and headed out to Blur sharpish. The gates had opened at 2:30pm and apparently the show was to start at 4pm but we arrived well after this. My realisation that staying near the front all day was impossible unless we forsook tea entirely and that the weather conditions made it doubly undesirable meant that arriving late was definitely the best thing. The back of my ticket had a map of Hyde Park on which failed to point out where the site entrance would be but I correctly guessed it would be near Marble Arch. In fact my ticket simply said to enter through gate X10 which was strictly a service entrance, plus you could have just about seen everything for free from outside the arena! The back of my ticket also explicitly said that taking in water bottles up to 500ml was fine so I was quite appalled to see they were being confiscated upon arrival! Having stupid and gay rules is one thing, but the ticket should accurately tell you what they are! My ticket had also said in a vague manner that cameras weren't permitted so I hadn't risked taking mine. The time was getting on hence the risk of sunburn had already passed but we still required plenty of ice creams to survive! The sacrifice made in arriving late was not getting to watch Hypnotic Brass Ensemble, who I'd been looking forwards to, and I'd also hoped to see Friendly Fires but they had pulled out without explanation.
The arena itself had been set up beforehand and had played host to The Killers just days before. Some of it had been closed off as superfluous but there were an impressive variety of food stores and even an empty tent where you could sit and escape from the sun. For a festival set-up it was merely adequate but for a special large gig it was excellent. The grass was an unattractive yellow and I presume that it had been deliberately killed off to prevent mud from building up too much. Crystal Castles were already performing and sounded quite hideous and distorted, but that could say more about our distance from the stage than their talent (or lack of). Nevertheless I didn't enjoy it and the only tolerable bits were when she didn't sing! We were sitting on the grass quite far away from the stage and remained there for much of main support act Foals. They sounded more promising but mostly drifted along and I can't recall anything of note to review about them. There was a reasonable sized seated area stage-left which was charging an additional £40 for entry which was quite shocking, especially when so many were happy to pay for its use. Its only worthy feature was "private" toilets but I guess if you're stupid/rich enough to blow £40 just to sit miles away from the stage that's your problem, maybe the organisers should exploit these morons for all their worth? We wandered around the back of the arena then sneaked in to a good position quite far to the left. The stage was set up with a map of London on the left and Britain on the right and the video screen featured the photo of the greyhound from the tour publicity which was also on my very pretty ticket. Some people were sitting down until the last minute but gradually our area filled up and less selfish people were pushing past us except to get out. It was probably only around 8:20pm when The Debt Collector started up and anyone in the crowd who realised this was a Blur song went crazy! She's So High once again led into an astonishing Girls & Boys and the crowd went quite mad. There was a much more impressive lightshow as you'd expect and I wonder if this concert in front of 55,000 fans was the largest Blur show ever, festivals excluded?
The video screen was also a large plus and made me notice just how integral Graham is to Tracy Jacks rocking so hard. I was now fully prepared for There's No Other Way to continue this astonishing run of tunes and it was great to be outdoors and not to be struggling for oxygen. The band all seemed to be enjoying themselves as much as before, as Damon looked around and asked us "is this all adequate?" and stopped at one point to tie his shoelaces, declaring that he must do it properly to avoid a mishap! The setlist was almost identical to before and I guess that Blur are so happy with it they needn't fiddle around with it too much. At sunset we were told to say goodbye to the sun and shout hello to the moon, a chant which Damon ordered us to repeat to make sure that the moon heard us. He'd done similar at Glasto and I wonder if it was a very subtle tribute to Jacko? I certainly like Tender but it's amazing how nobody seems to want it to end. Whenever the band stop the crowd sings it back at them and this also was the tune which everyone was singing on the way out: an angry mob going through London chanting the lyrics to Tender! Country House worked better outside than it had in Wolverhampton and I wonder if the band are enjoying it in the knowledge they'll never play it again? Oily Water was as unnecessary as before but Damon spun around with his megaphone to create cool whooshing sounds into the mic at the climax. Just being outdoors gave everyone more energy and Parklife attracted one of the largest moshpits which fully included our part of the crowd for the first time. Damon pointed out that the song was inspired by Hyde Park and a large cheer went up as Phil Daniels bounded onstage. It was especially entertaining how Damon relished all the jokes of the song, including running around to the joggers bit, and I'm very glad I've now seen Parklife as it should be performed!
Apart from Graham's introduction to Coffee And TV all the talking was done by Damon, including a vague mention of the Iraq war protests of 2003 and how astonishing that the band could come back after ten years of doing nothing to such a crazy reaction. The success of Gorillaz in particular and Graham's solo career had maintained everyone's interest and it was clear that the band members hadn't lost one iota of their talent! Damon also made us feel special by pointing out that these shows were the reason Blur had reformed and everything else had built up around them. To The End closed the main set and this time I noticed the crystal ball being lowered, spun around and lit up to create the cool lighting effects I'd enjoyed but not understood last time. This Is A Low then ended the main set in a lovely manner despite Graham's false start! Popscene once again featured a backwards roll from Graham and less crowd reaction than it deserved whereas I don't remember Damon crowd surfing during Advert this time around. Song 2 generated a predictably mad moshpit and the first encore was completed without surprises. The band then shocked me for the first time with Death Of A Party. I guess it's nice enough but I'm frustrated at the thought of a band meeting where they decided that the crowd would enjoy it more than the reinstatement of Charmless Man, which was once again the only glaring omission. For Tomorrow was then drawn out more than it had been last time and the band proclaimed that they honestly didn't know how they could repeat this all tomorrow before closing with The Universal.
I did wonder if this show would go down as a poorer version of Friday's event. It's a bit cruel of Blur to have the second date announced taking place before the first one and I'm sure this annoyed a lot of people. I'm relieved to learn that both nights had exactly the same setlists but was shocked to hear that Friday's crowd were worse! The "first" date had sold out in minutes which implies only hardcore fans would have got tickets. However I heard many complaints about tossers throwing bottles and the crowd not knowing the more obscure songs and I wonder how morons like this could possibly have got tickets when there were so few tossers at our show which had taken months to sell out? It's a mystery I may never understand but Blur had pulled this evening off in a magnificent manner. I doubt Half Man Half Biscuit, The Beatles or even Blur themselves have ever played a show as large, relevant to their history and wonderful as this which automatically makes this a very strong contender for the greatest moment in live English music history, possibly even a contender with 1066A.D. for most important moment in English history full stop! The setlist was just so stunning and the locale and size of the crowd so fitting I just don't see how anything in English music could compete. As Marble Arch and the park exits had been closed off by the police to keep the traffic moving the journey back was a slow and frustrating one. I guess this crowd control was for the greater good though and the police were actually quite nice to everyone. Due to a train terminating at an earlier stop the Bakerloo Line wasn't as swift as I'd hoped either.
The day after was even more successful, the only blot being a missed call from yet another agency while I was on the tube. I'd been reluctant to try for Wimbledon as Murray was playing but we turned up, got a lovely open top bus there and found that there was no queue! I've covered what happened in 2007 and 2008 in my second Brian Wilson review so won't repeat myself but getting in so easily was a shocking unexpected delight. I had to surrender my scissors to get inside but it was a very hot day with practically none of the rain that had been forecast. We also saw the women's doubles semi finals which didn't involve the obvious ultimate winners the Williams sisters plus a veterans doubles match featuring Vijay Amritraj who starred alongside Roger Moore in Octopussy and hails from Chennai! As I also enjoyed fish and chips this had been a couple of days that highlighted the absolute best of English things and was totally unaffected by a Scottish player losing yet again, which some were upset about! Blur received predictably ecstatic reviews in the newspapers and I purchased an extra train ticket from Euston to cover us until Watford which was a waste as nobody checked it anyway. It had been yet another near perfect show and when the CD of it I ordered arrived a pitiful seven weeks later I was able to relive it too! It would have been perfection with the inclusion of Charmless Man and a public hanging of Mogwai though. Mogwai should have apologised for ever criticising Blur and admitted that it was a shameless publicity stunt in attacking a band who are undisputedly amazing. In fact they even had had the audacity to lay into Blur again. Tonight had proved that Oasis: are inferior and Mogwai should be put to death for daring to question this new world order. Modern life is officially no longer rubbish!
Mark: 9.5/10
Blur
Support
Foals
Crystal Castles
Where
London Hyde Park
When
2nd July 2009
Price
£48.60
Who with
Claire
Position
Towards the left
Comments
I will get on to discussing Blur soon enough but it would be wrong to write this review without mentioning the world-changing news that happened since Blur's warm-up at the Civic. The very night after seeing Blur, Michael Jackson passed away and I dedicated all of Friday to watching the news and hearing his music. As I had a ticket to see him in February 2010 I was one of the people who lost something tangible rather than just a memory of past glories. As I'd half anticipated something like this happening, finding it very difficult to believe I'd ever get to see him live, I wasn't particularly shocked but nevertheless I realised there was no contest that this was the most significant death of the decade. In fact I'd argue it was significantly more monumental than Princess Diana - an ex member of the royal family who contributed little to the world despite being a good mother, charity worker and tabloid fodder. Some admirable qualities for sure but hardly worth the hysteria that followed her death. Also I'd consider it offensive to regard Elvis as in the same league as Jacko. The news is written by middle-aged people who still care about Elvis but the fact is he only had a handful of great songs, didn't write them himself and has little appeal to younger generations. Michael Jackson on the other hand was a musical hero to anyone with sufficient taste and lack of snobbery under the age of fifty, which was especially astonishing considering he'd been mired in controversy since 1993 and hasn't released a great record since Blood On The Dancefloor in 1997 when I was just fourteen! You'd have to go back to John Lennon for a sadder passing and I was offended by anyone who undermined Jacko's significance or music, most notably The Daily Mail, the Conservative middle-aged retards who adopted a predictable "yeah but he was hardly Elvis" attitude. So I will deeply regret never being able to see him live but will enjoy his amazing greatest moments for many years to come, and would consider it an insult to the man if I'd started off this Blur review without my own little tribute and thoughts.
Setlist
The Debt Collector
She's So High
Girls & Boys
Tracy Jacks
There's No Other Way
Jubilee
Badhead
Beetlebum
Out Of Time
Trimm Trabb
Coffee And TV
Tender
Country House
Oily Water
Chemical World
Sunday Sunday
Parklife
End Of A Century
To The End
This Is A Low
Popscene
Advert
Song 2
Death Of A Party
For Tomorrow
The Universal
