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Blur live at the London
Astoria
8
May 2003
Reviewed by
The Observer
Night of the Damon
After his stint with a cartoon
band, Albarn is a little too animated for Blur. Could he
be missing his departed guitarist as much as we do?
There are nine people in Blur tonight, but
really this is a one-man show. All the newfangled racks
of percussion that litter the stage don't come as such a
surprise, given Blur's flip from rock band to something
quite different on their latest album, Think Tank . Made
in Morocco with the aid of spluttery electronics, sultry
Eastern tones and Fatboy Slim, Think Tank displays Blur's
evolution. But what is startling tonight is how much the
crush of stuff and bodies onstage weights the band in
favour of one player - Damon Albarn.
Three backing singers whoop it up to the
left, adding harmonies and funny little dance moves, even
to really old songs. Percussionist Karl Vanden Bossche
sits next to Blur drummer Dave Rowntree, grafting on new
bits of clatter and sparkle. Behind Alex James, Blur's
laconic bass player, keyboard and sax player Mike Smith
contributes loops and bloops. Out front, replacement
guitarist Simon Tong - borrowed from The Verve - plays
the notes and keeps out of the way.
He's wise to, because Albarn is all-action -
careening around, jumping into the photographers' pit to
commune with the front rows, tirelessly exhorting the
audience to new heights of pogo-ing, thrashing at his
guitar.
It's Rowntree's birthday so we sing to him.
James still crosses his legs like he needs the toilet as
he nonchalantly plunks out basslines. But these surviving
members of Blur - they lost angular guitarist Graham
Coxon to musical differences as Think Tank was being
recorded - seem like bit players in tonight's drama.
Perhaps it was touring with his giddily
successful pop outfit Gorillaz that has brought out the
wild man in Albarn now. On that tour he played behind a
screen to maintain the mystery of the cartoon band. Now
he's making up for being out of the limelight: eyes
bulging, jaw locked, wringing with sweat, willing the
crowd - in a faintly Nietzschean sense - to love the new
stuff.
Usually this kind of behaviour
makes for a great frontman. It's the kind of triumphalist
aggression for which Albarn's former arch-rival, Liam
Gallagher, is feted. But at its height tonight - on the
strangely resurrected 'Top Man', a rotten song that dates
from The Great Escape , or when Damon blows his adoring
moshpit a vicious, snarling kiss at the end of 'For
Tomorrow' - this vehemence is just ugly.
 It's so much better when he relaxes and has
some fun. The new song 'Ambulance' starts the night off
so promisingly, with its stealthy accretion of
instruments and steady head of melody. It's a great
advert for the new sun-stroked, twist-fit Blur, as is the
current single 'Out Of Time', all elegant croon and
sweep. 'Good Song', too, lives up to its name,
illustrated on the backdrop by a sky at daybreak. (Yes,
yes, new dawn, we get it.)
Coming second in the set, 'Moroccan People's
Revolutionary Bowls Club' feels a little too cacophonous
and bitty this early on in proceedings, especially when
Damon attempts an unwise dub-Jah yelp. It's just the sort
of thing many will be fearing from this newly
well-travelled group, and it falls awkwardly. But he
pulls off a lovely, transcendent wail in 'Trimm Traub',
from Blur's previous album, 13 , whose loops and layers
heralded Think Tank 's meandering path. It's one of
tonight's unquestionable highlights, and it underlines
quite how good Blur can be.
Sadly this warm glow doesn't last. Another
misstep is 'Brothers And Sisters', a loose and funky jam
about the perils of drug-taking that loosens and funks up
no one. Its high moral tone is in some contrast to the
swivel-eyed spectacle Albarn makes on 'Beetlebum' and
'Girls And Boys' - two reliably thrilling songs - and the
less fortuitous 'Crazy Beat', what Blur are clearly
hoping will be the new 'Song 2'. It's a title that eluded
Blur's normally wakeful cringe-ometer. The tune's not too
hot either, wacky and not nearly as clever as their
phalanx of hits.
It's impossible not to mention the ghostly
Banquo at this occasion, guitarist Coxon. New man Tong
has a solid, Northern lad-rock way about him that fits
oddly with Blur's arty eccentricities, although it is
sweet to hear him play his semi-acoustic like a member of
the Byrds on 'Badhead'. He's not bad at this, just
different.
Blur's latterday anthem, 'Song 2', is always
a pleasure to hear, but tonight its raucous American punk
riff is delivered as though by an alien. And 'Battery In
Your Leg', the one song on the new Blur album that
features Coxon's vestigial guitar, feels slightly wrong
without him, although you do feel that Blur are playing
it in some sort of tribute.
'Alex got married last week,' says Damon,
sweetly, at one point. 'Graham came along as well. It was
a nice thing.'
Ultimately you have to hope Coxon comes
back. Albarn is a fantastic lead singer of a strong Blur
- charismatic, clever, inspired - but as a one-man show
Blur are lopsided and not as easy to love.
Kitty
Empire
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