A post I originally wrote in July 2011, translated and revised. With the news of a possible upcoming album and the 2013 world tour this is a far less moving post but still a pretty relevant one.
Warning, if you’re allergic to cheesy music metaphors – this post is not for you.
There aren’t too many live concerts you leave emotionally overwhelmed with shivers running down your spine and a satisfying sense of closure. Four years ago I attended such a show and this is a post in its honour.
We acquired tickets for the blur reunion gig at Hyde Park 8 months in advance (after tickets for the first date sold out in 3 minutes, *cue panic* then a second date immediately opened *aaand breathe*). We restrained ourselves until summer, tried not to overdose on high expectations and traveled from Tel Aviv to London to be there when it happens.
To make sure that it happens.
Thus I, and a group of friends, was fortunate to be among the 50,000 excited fans that were squeezed, shoved and bathed in the sweat of strangers, succumbing to the melodic sounds of an unstoppable time machine.
Like a musical ninja, news of the reunion hit when no one, including perhaps the band members themselves, saw it coming.
The unofficial disintegration of Blur, six years earlier, was as ugly as the fugliest pop cliché:
A clash of the egos, between the charismatic frontman and the shy guitarist, after the years of artistic conflicts, alcohol abuse and a pinch of megalomania reached a boiling point and ruined almost a lifelong partnership.
The 13 year old Damon Albarn and Graham Coxon first met in the schoolyard when Albarn publicly poked fun at Coxon’s fake trainers. Coxon immediately realized two things. The first: that this Damon kid was a bit of a wanker, the second: That he really wanted to make sweet sweet music with him.
And so a bosom friendship and a creative collaboration flourished… until twenty years later it was dead and gone. Coxon was unceremoniously banished from the band during the recording of Think Tank and the remaining band stopped working together once production on the album was over.
Wham, bam, no thank you mister.
The six years that passed were accompanied by bitter words offered from both sides, mutual public snobbery of solo projects and failed reconciliation attempts by Alex James, the ever hopeful base player. From the fans’ point of view, it all seemed doomed… when suddenly news of a tour came out. A reunion which even to the most cynical of eyes seemed not birthed from cold financial incentives. But mates remembering they miss each other and musicians reminding themselves it’s all about the music.
The excellent “No Distance Left to Run” documented the reunion tour, which ended in the emotional crescendo of these two shows in Hyde Park, and many reviews and editorials sang its praise.
The gig I attended was unforgettable: Performed with energy found only in stage-beasts who were kept off it for too long, packed with an almost incomprehensible amount of hit songs, to an emotionally invested crowd that at times could serve as a terrifying human experiment (assemble 50,000 mild mannered Brits on a boiling afternoon in an open venue that holds many beer vendors, then let them wait 4 hours for the main attraction to come on. Stand back and observe how some transform themselves into crispy fried assholes that push and hit and throw beer bottles filled with piss up into the air. Tip: keep a distance, those bottles hardly ever stay up). It was a day to remember, not least for the grateful and teary band.
The media coverage that followed the tour with numerous articles, declared the Hyde Park gigs as the highlights of blur’s career and as some of the best live shows in history, and emphasized what emotional roller-coaster they proved to be for the four members of the band…
What surprised me, though, was the fact no one tried to put into words what the audience went through that night. What it was like for the fans. It may be pretentious, but it’s an unavoidable question.
What in all hells is the reason we, and hundreds of thousands of others around the world (including those who didn’t attend) were so emotionally invested in the reunion of four people we do not and likely won’t ever know?
Was it the thought of a beloved band never making another album that haunted us? The idea they will never do a live gig again? (And in my case, the realization that I will never ever get to see one of my favourite bands perform live?)
Well, yes.
But I think (and apologies if you heard me say this before) that it touched something deeper than simply taking artistic inventory.
There is something about the idea of two kids uniting in order to create music that is so romantic and magical that it makes it very hard to say goodbye to.
Similarly, there is something so disharmonious about an artistic split that the mind simply refuses to accept it. How can something that sounded so good end so badly?!
Unavoidably, I’d argue, this story transforms us back to a different time and place in musical history, scratching at an open wound in our collective music-loving psyche; The demise of The Beatles.
The notorious split between Lennon and McCartney and the disintegration of pop’s most important band is a shared trauma that will never heal.
The mind refuses to accept the idea that two people that were once, by an unimaginable twist of fate and possibly some evil dark magic, brought together to produce countless perfect melodies, could end their partnership on such a sour note.
Lennon’s murder made sure that the wound will remain forever open. The hope of restoring that harmony was scattered along with his ashes over central park.
Us atheists, we want to believe in the healing powers of art, and in this case it was viciously made impossible.
And this is where Blur comes in.
The surprising and seemingly impossible reunion of the band managed to mend, even if briefly and superficially, that old fracture.
Of course the two stories are different. Blur’s place in music history is nowhere near that of the fab four and the power struggle within the bands was not the same. And still, a spotlight should be turned on the emotional impact of this reunion.
Sometimes the music wins.
Sometimes hope prevails.
Sometimes egos are disarmed.
And on rare occasions we do get a happy ending.
In a spontaneous uncoordinated manner, Tender and The Universal, two loved yet not among blur’s most successful songs, turned into the unquestionable anthems of the tour. With the excited crowd singing them, in particular two specific lines from each song, on an endless loop… even long after the shows have ended, chanting the repeated lines as they walked away from the park and disappeared deep into the underground system.
Come on, come on, come on, get through it, come on, come on, come on, love’s the greatest thing.
These two songs were chosen instinctively by a mass of people, not because they are two of Blur’s most beautiful and moving songs, though they really are, and not because Tender has Coxon – the returning prodigal son, singing the chorus – though that certainly helped. No, they were chosen because these words turned into the motto and the unofficial tagline of the tour, a melodic wish-turned-mantra that fulfilled itself.
Words cannot explain the catharsis. Two kids healing a torn friendship with music, that then turns to heal their fans.
True, it doesn’t get us The Beatles back and the high only lasts a few hours (days/months/lifetimes), but hey, in a sobering cynical and despairing world, this is a dose of rare optimism and the tip of a Karmatic amend.
Art wins this round and in your face, reality!
And who knows, maybe someday we will get a Marr-Morrissey reunion? In the meantime, all we can do is sing.
Yes it really, really, really could happen…
Trumpet 