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Blur live at the
L'Espace Clacquesin, Paris
9 April 2003
Reviewed by
NME
Nobody mention Paul Simon.
If it's the imploding stars that shine brightest then
it's no wonder 'Think Tank' is such a
supernova. Founding members are now dispensable
bit-players, the US success of Gorillaz
has relegated Blur to little more than Damon's
experimental vanity project and that harbinger of
imminent credibility death 'world music' - a
phrase usually uttered by thirtysomething pop stars a few
minutes before 'how much for that trout farm?' -
hangs over them like a Damoclesian sword. By rights this
competition-winners-only micro-gig should be Blur's
last, doudouk-laden whimper. Rather than this ferocious
bang.
There's a faint sense of unreality to
proceedings - the venue is so small and light that Alex
winks and shrugs at NME throughout,
there's soul backing singers and tablas all over 'Topman'
and 'Badhead' and, while Simon
Tong does a sterling Dead Ringers job
on Graham's guitar gnashings, it's
simply not Blur without Coxon
in the corner giving you that feeling that you've let a
paranoid schizophrenic into your dinner party and let him
be 'mother'.
Not Blur, then, more post-Blur.
Blur: The Next Generation eschew the
inpenetrable android tummy-rumbles of '13'
for an earthy electro-Africana, the odd playground
larkabout and some apocalyptic noise blitz bits that
sound like being on the wrong end of a really pissed off
B52. 'Ambulance' is Radiohead
and Peter Gabriel making a joint treck
up an erupting Mount Spiritualized. 'We've
Got A File On You' - played twice, jubilantly -
is 'Song 2' with a snake charmer's pipe
up its arse. 'Battery In Your Leg' is a
heart-demolishing "ballad for the good
times" played on piano and tidal wave. And 'Gene
By Gene' is just mental - it starts
like some three-year-olds looting a cuckoo clock factory,
takes a sharp left down Sesame Street, winds up
at a limbo party where Tickle-Me-Elmo's singing The
Clash's 'Bank Robber', ends
with someone hitting a clown's car with a brick and sets
the legendary Alex James Hulahips
a-swinging. Woo, and indeed, hooo.
Come the punkarama thrashes of 'Song
2' and 'Crazy Beat' Damon's
shed his inner Sting and is screaming
rabidly with his head actually in the moshpit
like he's trying to wash his miraculous new head of
tramp's hair in kids. Trout farms be damned - this, ye
faithful, is a high.
Marc
Beaumont
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