“Are you ready for this?” asks a clearly up for it Damon Albarn who has the obvious answer roared back at him. Every inch of stage is covered as he gives the opening salvo of ‘Girls & Boys’, ‘Popscene’, ‘There’s No Other Way’ and ‘Beetlebum’ maximum sockage.
Sadly the same can’t be said of the gentlemen beside him. Graham Coxon and Alex James have always been known for their nonchalance, but rarely has it been as studied and irksome as it is tonight. No one’s asking them to turn into Bruce and the E Street Band, but if the current tour’s about celebrating their musical past rather than keeping themselves in the millionaire rock star lifestyle to which they’ve become accustomed, why are they playing the same songs in the same order at every gig? ‘Young & Lovely’ aside, the set when Blur rock up a week later to Oslo’s Øyafestivalen is identical to this evening’s, which screams ‘auto-pilot’.
I’m firmly in the minority though, with the thirtysomething lads and ladettes around me singing every word to every song, the obscurer mid-set likes of ‘Trim Trabb’ and ‘Caramel’ included.
Trying perhaps to make up for his guitar-wielding bandmates’ inertia, Damon dives headfirst into the pit for a punk rock ‘Country House’, and sports a grin that’s positively sewage-farm eating as he welcomes on stage the “vorsprung durch technik” man himself, Phil Daniels, for a celebratory ‘Park Life’.
In Ireland to film a new Sky One drama with fellow professional cockney Ray Winstone, he contributes to what even this curmudgeon will admit is one of the nostalgic highlights of the summer we’ve actually been having.
It’s not all about reliving past Britpop glories though, with the encore version of ‘Under The Westway’, penned last year to ensure they had summat new to play at their massive Olympics-closing gig in Hyde Park, suggesting that Blur are still capable of striking songwriting gold.
Hopefully the next time they pass this way, they’ll have a new album to dazzle us with, and two members who don’t look like they’re struggling to stay awake.