Virgin

A haze of frenzied internet scrambles and disjointed voyages into the unknown have shrouded Blur’s reunion plans of the summer thus far and the first of several secret London shows proved to be no exception. As students at London’s prestigious Goldsmiths College, the mere concept of social networking via a futuristic phenomenon that would be named the World Wide Web seemed unrealistic enough. That the same four unlikely lads would be broadcasting clandestine clues as to secret shows across the capital decades later would surely have seemed impossible. Yet around 10:42, Graham Coxon’s Twitter page gave the game away, rallying the troops to Brixton Academy for eighteen minutes later. A mad dash over the river, through the market and into the unnervingly miniscule queue ensued and fifteen minutes later, wrists were endowed with shining green/ gold dust wristbands emblazoned with the band’s now iconic freeform font. All that was left to do was wait. And wait… and wait. Until eventually, bang on five phones and electronic inboxes alike were bombarded with conclusive info as to the wheres and then the whens; Rough Trade East, on stage at 7pm sharp, no arrivals before half six for fear of jeopardising the whole shebang.

With tickets to the reformed quartet’s club shows in the run-in to colossal headlining festival slots and two sold out nights in the capital’s oxygenated heart of Hyde Park harder to come by than disposable barbeques in nigh on every London supermarket, a glimpse of hope came in a flash of green. Journeying across a drizzly, musty cityscape did nothing to dampen anticipation and impatience shot mercury out from bodily gauges. Bounding onstage a matter of minutes late, pandemonium and sheer disbelief sprung across the bemused mass of two-hundred odd devotees yet within minutes of She’s So High, any remaining emotions turn to beaming ear-to-ear grins from one claustrophobic wall to another, mirrored on the faces of the chiselled jaw of the endlessly posing Alex James and sweat-drenched youthful demeanour of Albarn. Having tried their collective hands and limbs at everything from cheese farming to Chinese operas and politics, a digging out of the roots that cemented Blur as the quintessentially cheeky Brit upstarts was always on the cards. Tonight, Rough Trade is transformed into the best garage gig never to entail smashed windscreens as involuntary feedback rasps through the murky humidity of an Amazonian rainforest. The Albarn sneer seen in full throttle for the first time in almost a decade proved its worth, as he, microphone lead in tow, veered dangerously close to a menacingly manic mob. The Arabian twang of Out of Time translated sonically to otherworldly treasures whilst Girls & Boys, complete with Alex James scaling the pillars preventing the ceiling from collapsing down upon us, served up the sort of sublime slab of disco stardust Klaxons would have to travel further than the near future for. The understated Gospel stomp of Tender juxtaposed with the visceral, obnoxious wails of Song 2 did everything to ramify precisely why Albarn, Coxon, James and Rowntree perfectly fill that gaping hole in the British music industry, without the sheer arrogance and destruction of the Gallagher brothers, nor the milk and cookies approach of the likes of Coldplay and The Script. Invigorating, inspiring and utterly unmissable, the reunion never sounded so victorious.

Blur tore through the following setlist:

She’s So High
Girls And Boys
Advert
For Tomorrow
End Of A Century
Beetlebum
Coffee And TV
Tender
Out Of Time
Popscene
Song 2
Parklife
This Is A Low

Yes - the news that all Oasis fans have been waiting for - Blur have confirmed that they are all set to reform in 2009 and will play Hyde Park, London on July 3. This will be the first time the original foursome have played together since naughty Graham Coxon left a few years back. Kinks’ fan Damon Albarn has been busy being the sound behind the animated Gorillaz, working with Clash man Paul Simonon on The Good, The Bad & The Queen and resurrecting Monkey magic in time for the BBC’s Beijing Olympics stings. Cheese fan Alex James has been busy on a farm somewhere, writing columns for British newspapers and trying to conduct an orchestra for a BBC reality TV series (and the less said about Fat Les and Wig Wam the better). Um, frankly I don’t know what drum fan Dave Rowntree has been up. But I bet he’s glad he’s got some big dates in his diary now for 2009.

Tickets are on sale from 9am GMT on Friday 12 December from livenation.co.uk.

If this doesn’t make some Blur fan happy enough for Christmas, then how about a promo of The Kinks’ CD boxset, tickets to see the Ian Dury play or The Clash book, CD & DVD?