Review of Blur at Hyde Park, London
Blur have reformed to play some of the biggest gigs of their career. Here’s our review of their performance at Hyde Park, London, on the 2nd July 2009.
The LED billboard reads ‘Welcome to Blur at Hyde Park. Drink water, wear sunscreen. Have a great time!’
Four songs into Blur’s performance and Damon’s singing ‘Tracy Jacks’. 55,000 fans are singing with him. We’re having a great time. The mid-twenties woman standing next to me has just stuck her finger in the air and finished Damon’s lyric for him; “His putt is erratic”.
They jog through ‘She’s So High’, ‘Girls & Boys’, ‘Tracy Jacks’, ‘There’s No Other Way’, ‘Jubilee’ and ‘Badhead’.
But the performance of ‘Beetlebum’ has depth. It reaches frenzy. The light is fading. The stage lights brighter. Before ‘Out of Time’, Damon says: “Two million people marched into this park in 2003, and tried to stop something and you know what happened, I just want to remind myself about it.”
Screaming and smiling
Damon’s screaming during ‘Trimm Trabb’. Lights strobe. Graham sings ‘Coffee & TV’. Alex is smiling.
Oh my baby. ‘Tender’ unites the crowd in extended sing-a-long. Oh my baby. A horizontal line of white light illuminates the stage. Oh my baby…
Now it’s ‘Country House’ Cue topless lads climbing on each other’s shoulders. It’s a favourite with those in the audience who don’t have English as their first language.
Blur rock ‘Oily Water’. After ‘Chemical World’, it’s ‘Sunday Sunday’. Damon encourages us to jog on the spot to ‘Parklife’, and tells us that he came up with the idea for the song while people-watching in Hyde Park. We are rabble. We are roused.
“She said there’s ants in the carpet / Dirty little monsters / Eating all the morsels / Picking up the rubbish…” ‘End Of A Century’ is sing-a-long and beautiful.
It’s night. A glitterball descends and we’re singing ‘To The End’. Beams of light shoot into the audience. Damon is staring out.
Then we’re singing “This is a low / But it won’t hurt you / When you’re alone / It will be there with you” ‘This is a low’. The glitterball has been replaced with the strong beam of a lighthouse, sweeping the swaying audience. Damon’s scrunched up and sitting down on stage, rocking back and forth. A huge cheer when the song ends. It’s 9:54pm, the band leave the stage. The crowd sings ‘Oh my baby’ from ‘Tender’. The band reappear and play ‘Popscene’ and ‘Advert’.
Woo Hoo
The crowd erupts and writhes to ‘Song 2′. In huge red letters, ‘Vote Dave’ scrolls across the back of the stage. Woo Hoo.
They leave the stage again. They return to play ‘Death Of A Party’ - it’s good, it’s got groove.
“For everyone who lives in this wonderful mixed-up city” is how Damon introduces the wonderful ‘For Tomorrow’. We’re singing along. He mouthes ‘I love you’ to crowd.
The last song is ‘The Universal’. “No one here is alone / Satellites in every home / Yes the universal’s here / Here for everyone / Every paper that you read / Says tomorrow is your lucky day / Well, here’s your lucky day.
“It really, really, really could happen / Yes, it really, really, really could happen /
When the days they seem to fall through you, well just let them go.”
We’re all singing. It seems we’re all celebrating something or other. Remembering. During the swelling instrumental Damon holds the microphone in the air. The two big screens flanking the stage show the microphone in his raised fist, behind the mic a sea of people in Hyde Park.
They leave the stage. “That was better than when I saw them in ‘94″ says someone behind me. Warm light bathes the crowd. We’re walking away. One girl turns back to her friend, “That was f***kin sweet”.
“Oh my baby / Oh my baby / Oh why / Oh my” bounces off the tiled walls of Marble Arch tube station.
By Ciarán Ryan for Extrageographic - Blur at Hyde Park, 2nd July 2009.
Were you at Blur’s Hyde Park gigs? What did you think? Add your review below.
