To B or not to B
from Melody Maker, September 1999Special thanks to Francesca for typing it out! This isn't a flattering review, but I thought you would want to read it…
We shouldn't be too surprised that Blur decided to play a B-sides show. After all they released an album of B-sides earlier this year...
So have Blur made it to the end? There is no doubt that playing a B-sides show feels like a terminally ill patient realising a lifelong ambition- seeing Disneyland, felching the Pope, whatever.
The"Greatest Hits" extravaganza near Christmas will be the proper au revoir (want to borrow my powerdrill for Country House, Graham?), whereas tonight is an exercise in for-the-fans-intimacy-though most are there just for the kudos gleaned from walking past a tout selling tickets for£140.
Blur's B-sides always presented the warning that the band would ultimately produce an album like "13". During their Britpop reign, they'd knock out Tracy Jacks for breakfast, but then, come teatime, find themselves immersed in Krautrock smog. But generally, Blur's B-sides are so magnificent that most bands would suck the snot out of a dog's nose until its skull caved in to possess them as A-sides.
There's a handful of songs tonight that should never have been left off albums - Explain, Threadneedle Street, Mace, and the glorious Young and Lovely.
the best of the rest seem to cast Blur in the various roles they've occupied over the years - Muzak casuals (Supa Shoppa), psychedelic spaceheads (Inertia, Luminous) and feedback anarchist (Day upon Day, Fried).
And if I can be a Blurspotter for a second the B-sides not played tonight - Peter Panic, Theme from an Imaginary film, Into another, Never Clever, People in Europe, Magpie, then £99.99 doesn't sound too much for a box set (it even leaves one penny change to buy the entire Mogway back catalogue).
They still found fantastic, but Blur's wrinkles are beginning to show. Damon is a touch more self-conscious in his pseudo-epilepsy, like a 30-something who feels too old for the moshpit. Alex disturbingly chubby and the proud owner of England's most famous champagne gut, looks like he is hiding the box set under his jumper.
Graham's face as usual, does its best to hide round the back of his head.
Indeed his eyes make a dash for the dressing room when one fan shouts for Parklife. peeved, Damon grumbles "We could play the same set we played at reading..it doesn't bother us".
Yeah, Damon, you don't say. The point is, the crowd cheer when Damon bitterly suggests switching to the Reading set. And a band is always in trouble when what they want to play differs from what the fans want to hear, which is the very dilemma that needled Blur all summer and concluded with Damon's ominous Reading announcement.
If the splitting up rumour was engineered merely as a cavalier diversion to steal the spotlight back from the Gallaghers, then maybe there is still some devilish life left in Damon. But, with an album every five years and a gig every 50 years, Blur seem destined to become the new New Order, which would be a dismal fate for one of our greatest ever groupls
Daniel Booth