On The Record

Oxegen - Blur show the love

July 11, 2009 @ 2:59 am | by Jim Carroll

Nice touches from Blur in what was an all-hits set. They dedicted “There’s No Other Way” to the late, great Leo Finlay, a Dublin-born music journalist who worked for a rake of publications including Sounds and Music Week. He was one of the first people to write about the band (in their Seymour incarntion) and Damon Albarn explained that Blur’s first Irish gig was at his wedding reception in 1990.

And, later in the set, Damon Albarn dedicated “The Universal” to another late, great - Joe Dolan, the dude in the white suit who covered that song.

Full review to follow, though I did feel that the audience weren’t quite as mad for the gig as they were for earlier sets from Snow Patrol, Lily Allen and The Script. Tiredness? Drunkeness? Unfamiliarity with the bulk of the set bar the big tunes? A combination of all three?

10 Comments »

July 11, 2009
12:41 pm

amazing gig from start to finish

Comment by petee

July 11, 2009
12:43 pm

“I did feel that the audience weren’t quite as mad for the gig as they were for earlier sets from Snow Patrol, Lily Allen and The Script.”

Well Blur fans in the pit were outnumbered tenfold by the flagwavin’ ole ole’rs who went mad for The Script and Snow Patrol and whose sole knowledge of Blur’s output seems limited to the Starship Troopers soundtrack. There was large pockets of kids up the front shouting ‘plaayee song Twoooo!’ in between songs, which is kind of embarrassing…like being rude to guests.

Comment by colly

July 11, 2009
12:43 pm

mogwai were also great. €6 for a beer is abit of a piss take though. luckily i managed to spot a girl serving beer who had a bit of a problem adding up so i got 2 beers for €9 for most of the night

Comment by petee

July 11, 2009
4:38 pm

A week after seeing the band that soundtracked my youth play the best gig I’ve ever seen in their back garden, I knew last night’s gig wasn’t gonna pack the same punch but still had high hopes it was going to be something special.

Blur were great. The crowd were shite. After the script & snow patrol were greeted like the beatles I thought this is gonna go 2 ways: blur are gonna get a whoppin response or they’re playing to a crowd who think the script & snow patrol are good.

As colly said, people shoutin “play song 2″ between every song (they probably only know blur from fifa 98), people lookin at us like we should be institutionalised for singin along to the debt collector at the start, annoyin little teenagers looking at each other blankly when they launched into ’she’s so high’, I’ve never felt so old in my life. Me n me mate were probably the 2 soberest people in the pit n we were gettin more involved than everyone around us combined.

So in my list of favourite blur gigs it’ll defo lag behind the Point Nov 95, RDS June 96, Point Nov 97 & July 99, Olympia Dec 03 & the aforementioned hyde pk gig. Still thought they were class but to borrow colly’s analogy, it was like havin guests over for a dinner party: they were fantastic company but fook me did we cook them a shite meal!

GWAN BLORE!!!

Oxegen “Best rock n roll weekend of the year”? My arse.

Comment by andy

July 12, 2009
6:00 pm

If only the “best crowd in the world” (sic) could be more like this:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z0bHrCSWPLQ

Comment by andy

July 13, 2009
9:58 am

Colly/Andy - after the weekend, I really think that going to Oxegen to see your favourite band is unfortunately never going to be a good idea. I really wish i’d went over to see them at Hyde Park.

You might find this interesting -
http://www.irishtimes.com/blogs/ontherecord/2009/07/13/oxegen-the-morning-after-the-three-nights-before/

Comment by Jim Carroll

July 13, 2009
10:09 am

hmm..i was really only there on the friday to see blur….granted i had a weekend pass, they were to be the highlight of my day…but they weren’t…

i found they lacked that little something special they played at Glastonbury just a few weeks back. The crowd were bored senseless around me…i was stage left near enough to the pit barrier…the sound was good and all, but people were leaving in there droves even before song 2 came on, i actually left myself to get food before it came on and when it ended a mass exodus of people were heading off into the night…

highlight of the night was sitting in dirt, eating overpriced noodles, singing along to the universal but i’m not sure it was worth the wait to be honest (having seen them at Reading a few years ago before they split that show was far better)…i was quite disappointed but im sure die-hard fans of the band were jumping with glee.

Comment by caroline

July 15, 2009
9:08 am

I was in the about the tenth row back and centre stage for the majority of the gig and where I was the crowd rocked. I had some good solid fans beside me which made the experience for me to have the people round me “getting” the band and being word perfect. I thought I was the only sober person in the pit until I read the other postings. I thought Blur rocked - Damon gave it his all, there were no half measures and God that man is fit - he did his jogging routine and then was able to go straight into singing without being breathless. I got into the second row when they came back on stage for the second encore and the crowd had started to leave not expecting them to come back on. Highlight for me was Damon at the barriers beside me singing the Universal for Joe Dolan.

Comment by G

July 15, 2009
9:59 am

G you must have been right beside us for the universal! Only other people near us singing every word were 2 young northern English lads who must have been only 19, they even knew oily water!

Must say I’ve talked to a few mates over the last few days who were just behind the 2nd barrier and they said it was mega there

Comment by andy

10.

July 17, 2009
11:56 am

I am not the fan of blur I used to be. They do not seem as good.

Comment by Blurry