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Blur live at the Newport Centre
4
Dec 1999
Reviewed by
NME
 Oh dear. The first night of Blur's
last tour of the millennium and Damon's about to 'lose
his rag' with a rowdy Newport crowd. Just like he did
on that charmless South Bank Show.
"How can I be a flash bastard?" he
pleads, indicating his super-slacker clobber and
heroically ugly new Sting-style haircut. Poor Damon.
Ten years of playing man of the people and still the
party line that Blur are classless art-scruffs is being
ignored.
Welcome to Singles Night, a chronological
all-hits marathon and Blurzone's definitive campaign to
stamp their brand on the dying decade. Hence their
sluggish start in the indie-dance sludge of 'Leisure',
including the Madchester trundle of 'She's So High'
- which, as Damon helpfully remarks, "sounds
a lot like Oasis even though it's from 1990". Oh
yes. Glad to see you're over that little spat, old bean.
The only problem is we've got Ray Davies and Syd
Barrett and David Bowie's lawyers on the
phone. And they sound mighty pissed off.
The 'Modern Life Is Rubbish' section
brings novelistic characters and those cheerily dumb "la
la la" singalongs which propel ambitious bands
into the big time. The arrangements also become sharper
and more historically aware, from the kaleidoscopic
harmonies of the mighty 'For Tomorrow' to the
herky-jerky music-hall supermarket dash of 'Sunday
Sunday'.
Blur officially became Brit Art with
a side order of Lad Lite on 'Parklife', and the
throbbing disco-muppet romp of 'Girls And Boys'
still sounds like a high watermark in this period of
Blurography. Then a slightly wobbly 'To The End'
provides a rare hint of vulnerability from a band who
rarely risk exposing any emotion at all.
But 'Parklife' itself is, was and
always will be crap. This is Blur's most caricatured
moment - a feeble heavy metal riff, a comedy knees-up
chorus, a rambling mockney lyric of stunningly
meaningless word association. Never mind Aqua, Placebo
or the Spin Doctors - this must be the most
irritating smash hit of the '90s. Sorry, Damo, but The Kinks
only ever wrote three decent tunes and Quadrophenia
is adolescent rock-opera wank. If this is the
landmark Blur will be remembered for, gawd 'elp us
orl.
Strange, then, that Damon affects
reluctance when 'Country House' arrives.
"This is doing my head in," he announces,
over-dramatically, for anyone who hasn't swallowed the
official post-Britpop spin that Blur never relished
competing with That Band and are frightfully embarrassed
by chart success. Yeah, right.
Repeat a lie often enough and it becomes
true. But even if it doesn't suit their inverted-snob
revisionism, the much-maligned 'The Great Escape'
is probably still Blur's finest hour, the point
where their arty melancholy and dead-on pop sensibilities
gelled most perfectly. Exhibit A: the tumbling strings
and blissed-out future-blues of 'The Universal'.
Exhibits B and C: the leering, boorish, self-satirising 'Stereotypes'
and 'Charmless Man', everything that 'Parklife'
fails to be plus strong melodies to boot.
The post-encore section heralds New Blur,
New Danger. But is the divide really that wide? OK,
Damon's voice sounds more crumpled and lived-in, Graham's
guitar scrongles where once it thrummed, but 'maturity'
makes a great marketing angle for broadsheet profiles and
South Bank Show producers. Yeah, 'Beetlebum'
is beautiful and 'Tender' autumnally anthemic, but
just as hollow and artful as anything on 'Leisure'.
Are those real tears in Damo's eyes on the
achingly sublime 'No Distance Left To Run', or is
he crying with relief at the end of another job
efficiently done? He's a professional cynic but his
heart's not in it.
After ten years, do we care whether Blur
'mean' it any more? Does it matter whether Damon is a
'real' cockney or not? Shall we sneer once again at their
middle-class roots? No, no and no. We just want our
hearts to be touched, moved, transported - or our heads
to be dazzled, dumbfounded, impressed. But after 23
songs, a few genius moments, lots of lulls and a
surprisingly low excitement quota, we feel as ambivalent
as ever - that Blur are too accomplished to
dislike, but too studied and remote to love with a
passion.
End of a
century. It's nothing special. But it's the only one
we've got.
Stephen
Dalton
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