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Blur live at Meltdown Festival,
London
2
July 2000
Reviewed by
NME
 This is BLUR‘s one and
only gig of the year in the UK. And it certainly
isn’t singles night. They work through a set that
has an almost mystifying choice of oldies and few of the
hits you might expect, but they do it with flashes of
incredible insight and a sense of fun, fulfiling their
duty of winding down SCOTT WALKER‘s MELTDOWN
FESTIVAL at the LONDON ROYAL FESTIVAL HALL.
Starting the set with ‘Battle’
with a curt "Good evening - this is it, once this
year, the choice has been difficult," from frontman Damon
Albarn, they go for the jugular with a ferocious
assault on the song. Guitarist Graham Coxon, who
embarks on his solo tour in a week’s time, seems to
be more upfront in the vocal mix, his backing tones
stronger than before and more powerful, the whole song
reaching out, with Damon screaming into the
microphone.
The holy tones of ‘Tender’
are swollen by six members of the London Community
Gospel Choir, with a typically louche Alex James,
fag drooping from mouth, swaps his bass for a
double-bass. They delve back into the album ‘Modern
Life Is Rubbish’ for ‘Blue Jeans’,
described by Damon as a song that he wrote when
moved to West London, but it seems an odd choice when
none of the album’s singles are included in
tonight’s set and there are times when they seem
almost self-conscious during it.
 Then ‘Trimm Trabb’ comes
along and bangs it all to hell, with Damon giving
the assembled Blur faithful a big come-on, winking
and grinning, almost luring them into it, forcing them to
give more of a reaction. The front sections of the
audience are more static than they were are last
night’s Radiohead show in the same venue. He
does engage them, but - maybe being a more arty,
analytical festival crowd than your average Blur
audience - it doesn’t take off in quite the way it
might do.
‘Country Sad Ballad Man’ is
"about the generation that put us all in the state
that we are in now," then ‘To The End’
is dedicated to Scott Walker with the words:
"He had an enormous influence on all our [Blur‘s]
lives."
The frontman is clearly enjoying ‘Look
Inside America’ and it is one of the best of the
older songs they play tonight, with Damon wreathed
in genuine, huge grins.
And then it all goes a bit pear-shaped with ‘Beetlebum’,
with Damon and Graham collapsing in fits of
giggles looking at Alex, the song disintegrating
halfway through. They restart and carry on and the
punters really don’t seem to mind at all.
‘This Is A Low’ is the
highlight by miles. Damon has his arms aloft,
swathed in scarlet lighting, and the whole crowd raising
its voice in chorus with him. It’s beautiful,
perfect.
‘No Distance Left To Run’
sees the celebrity guest slot for the evening - no,
it’s not Kylie, it’s not Billie,
it is a nubile Ken Livingston perched on a podium
to the left of the drum-riser, looking for all the world
like your dad perched up there, awkwardly (almost)
boogieing away. He’s enjoying himself though, bless.
The finale of the encore-free set is the new
track ‘Black Book’, which is almost
hesitantly introduced with the words: "This is the
one new song we are playing, if you don’t like it
we’re fucked." It almost picks up where ‘Tender’
left off, a lengthy build-up but they are baring
themselves in this song, the refrain "give me my
soul" reinforced again, and again, and again. The
song builds up to a huge, pounding guitar track, echoing
the tempo of ‘Tender’.
Despite howls for ‘Song 2’
there is no encore, it’s a no-nonsense, no-frills
set and pretty unpredictable. Whether they wussed out of
the shock-set entirely comprised of new songs as hinted
at by Coxon or whether it was never really on the
cards isn’t clear. But an audience leave thoroughly
satisfied. Whether the band are or not, we don’t
know.
Reviewed
by unknown
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