Hyde Park Life

Right, so last thursday me and Ali bunked off school to go see Blur in Hyde Park their third public performance since reforming earlier this year. Unfortunately, I had quite a lot of drink so my reccolections are a bit blurry. Hiyooooooo! I jest, I was def sober. We got there really early so basically spent 6 hours in the sun, watching the lame warm up acts and waiting for The Real Deal to come on stage. Quick run-through of the support: first up the Hypnotic Brass Ensemble, a group of brass-playing Americans who were actually pretty good. Second up were the Golden Silvers, kinda a Morrissey rip-off band - the singer had nailed that trademark mournful caterwaul perfectly. After that Crystal Castles performed in what can best be described as bizzare; the front-woman, sporting an 'Oasis Have Aids' t-shirt stumbled through their set. She was either completely off her face on who-knows-what, or is really good at pretending to be inebriated. She fell over a speaker at one point and took a few moments to get up again with the help of a poor stage-hand who spent the rest of their set trying to stop her mic lead getting tangled as she wobbled all over the stage. Finally, the only bad I had previously heard of, Foals, were just plain old boring. I've never been a big fan of their music and nothing they played did anything to change my mind. Onwards and Upwards.

Blur finally entered the stage at 8:30 to rapturous support, and the crowd loved it. The whole 'amazing atmosphere' that people tend to talk about at events like this finally became evident; it was amazing. Blur were inspired, and blasted through some twenty-five songs, both famous and not so much, with panaché, including two encores. The shoddyness of their support on cast the talents of Blur in greater relief. Most bands are better live, but for Blur the difference was even greater. Tender, the great balad in Blurs back-catalogue, was given a greater poignancy by the 55'000 strong crowd singing along in unison: it really is a beautiful song, and desparately underrated by johnny public. Other highlights included the closing song before the encores, This Is A Low, which was so good it made the encores seem a bit (just a tad!) weaker. Retrospectively perhaps it should have been the final song, it would have been a fantastic send-off.

Anther fun thing during the day was the crowds tendency to lob plastic bottles at anybody and everybody that went up on someone elses shoulders. To some, this is the height of idiocy, but frankly when is it not fun to throw stuff at someone else?? One complaint, where was Charmless Man? God knows we shouted loud enough for it. On another note, I was looking through the myriad videos on youtube of the concert, and lo-and-behold, I found one with Ali and I in it, what are the chances!

Ace day!