Blur, London Goldsmith’s College
Blur's Alex James - image by ex zilla
June 22, 2009
I’d liked to have started this review off by going on about how special it was to be arriving at such a small venue, littered with reminders of what university life was like and painfully similar to the school halls of my childhood. This sentimental feel was very much in keeping with what Blur’s music has meant to me, personally, over the years. I think I aged a good five years when my big sister handed me a copy of Leisure when I was ten years-old, while I vividly remember dragging my mum on a bus ride to Our Price in Islington the day The Great Escape came out.
The trouble is, David Walliams – a mountain of a man, I might add – was lurking around the entrance hall as we arrived. This symbol of British popular culture in the “noughties” was a stark reminder that this was no ordinary trip down memory lane for that small ginger kid bopping to ‘There’s No Other Way’ in his bedroom, wondering how that guitar made all those sounds. This was a real event. What was once my own small secret was now… oh, and there’s Jude Law.
When the band saunter on just a few minutes after their promise of eight o’clock, and swagger into the opening number from their 1991 debut LP, the crowd sway and groove, all the while mindfully transfixed on the figure stood in the middle of the stage. His eyes locked on the ceiling above him, Damon Albarn looks like a man praying to the Goldsmiths Gods, a lead singer watching nigh on twenty years of his life roll by and culminate in the right here, right now. … Continue Reading
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