Blur at Hyde Park
In the final few weeks of 2008, something unexpected happened. Yes, it had been mooted and thrown around as a rumour for quite some time, but nobody was really sure if it would ever actually come about. Then it did: with sepia-toned photographs of Damon Albarn and Graham Coxon, entwined and grinning, splashed across an NME feature, Blur reformed.
We Have Band
June 28, 2009
Sunday: a day spent mainly at the Pyramid. This means a walk up to The Park for Micachu and The Shapes is out of the question and we’re stuck watching Status Quo. This won’t do, we decide not to wait for their hits and head back down to John Peel for We Have Band, winner of the festival’s Emerging Talent competition. We are glad to see them play to a healthy amount of people and the three way sharing of “Oh, oh, oh” on ‘Oh!’ is some of the best fun we have had all weekend.
Later Tony Christie is on the Pyramid doing ‘Amarillo’, a conga weaves past us and man, woman and child are grinning like simpletons. We are still buzzing though after hearing the masterful ‘Walk Like a Panther’ in person and wanting to seek out last year’s Made In Sheffield which we never got round to hearing at the time. It’s then back into the Guardian Lounge for more cake, tea and newspapers and the relaxing aural soundscape of The Penguin Café Orchestra. There’s no rousing of anyone from the floor this time, though. … Continue Reading
Blur
June 26, 2009
After a series of intimate gigs chosen for the nostalgic weight of their locations, Blur make the step-up to the MEN Arena tonight, prior to heading off to Glastonbury and London. After a prematurely-dated Klaxons set bereft of any new material whatsoever, the four-piece begin their show as they began their career back in 1990, with the dreamy if naïve ‘She’s So High’, an unremarkable baggy homage which then betrayed little of the invention to come over the next decade.
Instantly following with ‘Girls and Boys’, the track which arguably kicked the Britpop movement into fifth gear, it’s a hits-heavy set, with scant room for obscurity – although the devastating ‘Trimm Trabb’ and immensely funky ‘Oily Water’ (part of three consecutive choices from the underrated Modern Life Is Rubbish) are amongst the less well-known highlights. … Continue Reading
Glastonbury, née the Mississippi
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Spoilers so far revealed are as such: Klaxons are guesting at the Park Stage on Friday. As well as that excitement, there’s of course some other special as-yet-unannounced guests on Friday, a massive name who Emily Eavis says would cause a humongous health and safety risk if revealed.
The only way to find out (well, the best way…) is to, you guessed it, follow us. So do it now.
Review coverage and all that jazz shall follow in due course – and let’s be seancing for good weather for our roving reporter, Mitchell Stirling. … Continue Reading
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
Blur
Following their comeback show on Saturday, Graham Coxon exclusively revealed via his Twitter page that Blur are playing a London show tonight (Monday June 15).
Wristbands are available to the first 170 people to turn up at Brixton Academy NOW so get your skates on. The show will not be taking place there, and the current rumours suggest that it will be at Rough Trade East. It’ll be a scorcher… … Continue Reading
Blur
As a warm-up for their massive, huge, gigantic, showstopping shows, Blur have announceD a duo of intimate club shows to raise money for charidee.
These fan club only dates were announce this morning at blur.co.uk, and will come before the band’s appearances at Hyde Park, the MEN Arena, Oxegen, T In The Park and Glastonbury.
On June 13, they will be making a return to the East Anglian Railway Museum, the venue of their first ever gig. The proceeds will go to the Aldham Village Hall Restoration Project and the museum itself. … Continue Reading
I wrote your number on my hand but it came off in the rain
OK, let’s get it out of the way now - we were totally right about Glastonbury, as was everyone else who made a half-arsed prediction, presumably.
No time for portaloos
Another week, another load of festival news – like a massive delivery of portaloos or pear cider, I’d imagine.
Blur
Hot on the heels of announcing appearances at T in The Park and Oxegen festivals, Blur have confirmed that they will play Manchester Evening News Arena on June 26th 2009.
We are listening
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