Blur’s Wembley gig
- Jan 4, 2023
- 1 min read
This summer (2023) had other musical stand-out moments. Not only did Pulp maginficently return, but Blur played two rather stupendous, spellbinding Wembley gigs on the back of a lovely new album (‘The Ballad of Darren’).
As a long-time fan of Damon Albarn’s music, I’ve seen the band more times then I care to count, as well as his many other incarnations (Africa Express; Gorillaz; The Good, the Bad and the Queen; and solo work), so, initially, I was a little reluctant to shlep all the way to Wembley for a stadium gig, after seeing them in cosier settings. But even I was surprised at the feel-goods that ensued. As I tweeted at the time, the band managed to turn a massive stadium event into a communal, intimate, starry-eyed sing-along, where we were treated to ‘Out of Time’, as well as one of his many odes to West London, ‘Under the Westway’, (seeing as it was London, Albarn said), which were absent from previous setlists (for this tour). The result was a very special night, particularly the moment when the 90,000-strong crowd chorused ‘Tender’ acapella-style, with Albarn plucking guitar strings wanly on stage, clearly overtaken by the emotion. The stadium was lit up with a forest of flickering phone lights, glowering through the darkness, and, according to a friend, ‘one guy collapsed in tears in front of me’… which seems to kind of capture the mood.
(You can read an interview I did with Damon Albarn here, where I met him four years ago at his studio.)
Written for my Substack newsletter in August 2023.
Comments