Sunday, 14 June 2009 05:30 UK

Blur triumph in tiny comeback gig

By Ian Youngs

Music reporter, BBC News

 

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Blur at East Anglian Railway Museum

 

Blur have begun their comeback at the scene of their first ever concert.

 

The Britpop heroes played for around 150 people in a goods shed at the East Anglian Railway Museum, where they launched their careers in 1988.

For Saturday's gig, their first show for nine years, they used a vintage carriage as a dressing room and played surrounded by station memorabilia.

 

They will now go on tour, taking in headline slots at Hyde Park, Glastonbury and T in the Park.

 

Read the full gig review below:

 

As the opening chords to Parklife kick in, Damon Albarn bounces like a boxer coming out of retirement for one last title fight.

 

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Damon Albarn (right) and Graham Coxon have reconciled after falling out

 

He's no longer the cheeky chappy who jumped about in the Parklife video back in the band's Britpop heyday.

But he and his bandmates are up for the fight.

 

It's almost a decade since these four musicians performed together, and during that time they have gone their very different ways (monkey operas, cheese-making and politics, to name a few).

They seem to be friends again, and are clearly relishing the rediscovery of their old songs, which still sound great.

 

In a couple of weeks, they will be playing those songs for tens of thousands of fans at huge outdoor shows.

 

But the first warm-up show is different. It is tiny by comparison, and is special because it is a return to the first place they ever played. It is also very odd as gig venues go.

 

A vintage train carriage, which doubles up as their dressing room, is next to the stage, along with an open wagon where the band's families sit.

 

Old-fashioned signs from Clacton-on-Sea and Southend stations adorn the walls, while from the ceiling we are directed to the 'Continental ticket office' and 'Foreign passports'.

When they get going, it takes a few numbers for the band to be at ease playing as Blur again - but not long.

 

Albarn is the focus, as ever - the prize fighter, the jester, the sneering punk and the sensitive thinker, depending on the mood of the song.

He switches between jumping manically, staring pensively and eyeballing the crowd menacingly as the band move from indie anthems to subtle tearjerkers to scuzzy soul-cleansers.

 

There is no barrier between the crowd and the stage, no line of security, so when Albarn dives off stage, he's instantly carried aloft by outstretched arms.

 

Bassist Alex James does his best to steal some of the limelight, standing on his monitor speakers and shaking his floppy fringe, with a cigarette balanced between his lips.

 

While Albarn is covered in sweat, James looks like he has stepped straight out of a Timotei commercial. He is still the coolest man in rock.

 

All the bases are covered in the 130-minute set as the band burn through Girls and Boys, There's No Other Way, Beetlebum, Coffee and TV, Tender and Country House, to huge receptions from the compact crowd.

Lighter singles like Charmless Man become heavier, threatening to blow off the shed's roof, which this gig is raising money to repair.

Parklife gets 150 arms in the air, and Albarn puts his arm around guitarist Graham Coxon as they join together for the final chorus of End Of A Century.

 

Coxon asks for a show of hands to choose between Essex Dogs and Sing - being an Essex band playing to an Essex crowd, he concludes: "Essex Dogs has it."

And just as you start thinking there can't be many songs left that have stood the test of time, they pull out To the End, Song 2 - which makes the place erupt - and For Tomorrow.

 

Albarn uses a British Rail clock above the crowd to work out how many songs are left before he has to let fans go and get the last train from the adjacent station.

"We've got six minutes before the last train goes," he says, before the band finish with the poignant The Universal.

 

It's hard to think of a post-Britpop band who can pluck at the same range of emotions as Blur, and whose tunes are underpinned by similarly astute songwriting and storytelling.

They may reclaim the heavyweight crown after all, and there is also now the tantalising prospect of new material.

The smiles between Coxon and Albarn suggest their friendship might really be back on track, and it's difficult to imagine two such prolific musicians not being tempted to have a go at writing new songs.

 

For now, their classic songs are ripe for being revisited and their sound and presence will easily fill the fields where they will play this summer.

 

Are you looking forward to the return of the 1990s Britpoppers this summer or not?

This Is Fake DIY.co.uk

By Stephen Ackroyd / Posted on Sunday, 14th June 2009

Artist: Blur

Venue: East Anglian Railway Museum

Date: 13th June 2009

Review

10/10

 

It's 10pm on a Saturday night, and the sound of strings fill the Essex air. Hands are aloft, even the hardest heart can't help but crack the widest of smiles; Blur are playing 'The Universal'.

 

Gigs like this don't come around often, if ever. To set the scene with any plausibility is a challenge in itself. In a small railway shed, part of a tiny railway museum in quite possibly the smallest village we've ever visited, hidden up miles of winding country lanes, the most important band of their generation are making their long awaited return. Instead of the tens, even hundreds of thousands they'll play to over the next few weeks, here the audience numbers 150. Imagine finding Radiohead playing the back room of your local boozer and you're still a good distance off.

 

Rewind two hours and it's the floppy haircut and vaguely shoegazing strains of debut single 'She's So High' that mark Blur's return proper. There's no awkwardness, no suggestion that this was an idea best left alone; from the off it's as if they never went away. From the word go Alex James is no longer "that bloke with a farm who writes those columns and makes cheese", Dave Rowntree is a drummer, not a politician, Damon Albarn shows absolutely no signs of trying to introduce us to some African two piece experimental bongo choir, and Graham Coxon is grinning. So, it should be noted, is everyone else.

 

What follows is a dream-like procession of tracks, each more brilliant than the last. 'Girls & Boys' into 'Tracy Jacks', 'There's No Other Way' followed by 'Jubilee' and then 'Badhead'. These aren't songs from a generation ago; they're familiar yet new. 'Beetlebum', 'Coffee & TV and 'Tender', with it's refrain now rescued from the soul destroying gospel choir of 2003 and placed firmly back into the hands of Coxon, all manage to make a tiny outbuilding feel as huge as Hyde Park.

 

To cherry pick from a set list like this is near impossible. Both 'Country House' and 'Charmless Man' are reclaimed without the need for 'I Love The Mid-Nineties' style nostalgia. Any thoughts of subverting them seem cast aside; this is clearly a Blur comfortable with their lot, not running away from their own success. 'Colin Zeal', 'Oily Water', 'Chemical World' and 'Sunday Sunday' form the heart of 'Modern Life Is Rubbish', large swathes of which get an outing ('Advert' and 'For Tomorrow' will follow). 'Parklife' may not bring forth Phil Daniels, but seeing Albarn try and remember the words is better entertainment anyway.

 

If there's ever been one moment that defines Blur as a band though, it's been that guitar solo. The one two thirds of the way through 'This Is A Low', where at the end of quite probably the biggest album of their lives, in the middle of a song essentially formed around the shipping forecast, Graham Coxon plays a part of such building, crashing genius that it provokes emotions that don't even have words to go alongside them. Imagine how amazing that could sound, double it and it's still nowhere near the euphoria of it's set closing appearance tonight. If there was no encore, there'd still be a hundred odd lucky souls stood with their mouths open somewhere in deepest Essex.

 

An encore there is, though. 'Popscene' and 'Song 2' send the crowd mad, 'Out Of Time' and the haunting 'Battery In Your Leg' (the only nods to the Coxon-less 'Think Tank') space them out. 'Essex Dogs' tops 'Sing' in a vote of hands, then with an eye on the clock we're finally at 'The Universal'. To avoid the obvious is impossible; "It really really really could happen". After years of crossed fingers, it seems it finally has.

Blur make live comeback in Essex museum

Band play 'first gig in 10 years' for friends and family

NME.com * Jun 13, 2009

 

Blur made their live comeback tonight (June 13), playing an intimate "friends and family" gig at the East Anglian Railway Museum near Colchester.

 

Playing their first gig as a four-piece in nearly a decade, the band – who first confirmed their reformation to NME.COM last year – performed in a converted goods shed at Chappel And Wakes Colne just outside the town centre, the scene of the band's first ever public performance 20 years earlier.

 

"If you could make your way into the hall," frontman Damon Albarn instructed the crowd, which included long-term producer Stephen Street, as they kicked off with first ever single 'She's So High', before dipping into two tracks from 1994 album 'Parklife' in the form of 'Girls And Boys' and 'Tracy Jacks'.

"It's a bit different to last time we played here," Albarn later told the audience ahead of a rocked-up version of 'Jubilee', referring to the birthday party the group originally performed at the museum while they were still called Seymour.

"Thanks for coming to see us play," the singer told the fans ahead of 'Trimm Trabb'. "I don't know if it's been 10 years, but 10 years is an easy number!"

 

Lead singer duties were then handed over to guitarist Graham Coxon for 'Coffee & TV', before he shared vocals with Albarn on 'Tender'.

They then tore through a faithful rendition of Number One single 'Country House' rather than the revamped version the band had previously hinted at playing.

 

Later, the four-piece performed single 'Parklife' with Albarn, bouncing around the stage, delivering all the vocals in the absence of actor Phil Daniels, who is expected to link-up with them at later dates.

Playing a spirited version of 'End Of A Century', Blur then ploughed into 'To The End'.

 

Ending their initial set with 'This Is A Low', the band quickly re-emerged to blast into 'Popscene'.

'Advert' followed, with Albarn stage-diving into the audience and crowd surfing around during the instrumental section, before the band then showed off a version of 'Song 2' which saw them slowly build the drums up to the track's usual frenetic speed.

 

Proving there are no hard feelings, Blur then performed 'Out Of Time', a track Coxon did not originally feature on due to his absence from the band during most of the 'Think Tank sessions, though his spine-chilling guitar part aptly fitted into the song.

Fittingly, they followed it with 'Battery In Your Leg' – the one track on the same album the guitarist did perform on.

After a hand vote in the audience between 'Sing' and 'Essex Dogs', the latter, in its home county, predictably won, before the group wrapped up their two-hour set with 'For Tomorrow' and 'The Universal'.

 

Blur played:

 

'She’s So High'

'Girls And Boys'

'Tracy Jacks'

'There's No Other Way'

'Jubilee'

'Badhead'

'Beetlebum'

'Trimm Trabb'

'Coffee & TV'

'Tender'

'Country House'

'Charmless Man'

'Colin Zeal'

'Oily Water'

'Chemical World'

'Sunday Sunday'

'Parklife'

'End Of A Century'

'To The End'

'This Is A Low'

'Popscene'

'Advert'

'Song 2'

'Out Of Time'

'Battery In Your Leg'

'Essex Dogs'

'For Tomorrow'

'The Universal'