The first time Damon Albarn cried on stage was at the 2009 Blur reunion at Glastonbury. He did it again in Hyde Park in 2012 and then a few weeks ago at Wembley. Even tonight in Lucca, at some point he kneels at the cash register and gets a luchchiconi, covers his face with his hand with a microphone, and then takes a sip of water from a bottle. Of course, it is possible that he pretends that all this is studied at the table, but since we are talking about pop music, this does not matter.
Blur spent almost as much time mourning Blur’s past (2009-2023) as Blur did in their legendary dazzling form (1988-2003), with handsome Damon Albarn as Ewan McGregor prancing around grinning like a corrupted angel and Graham Coxon creating The nerd concept was cool even before the concept even existed. It seems to me somewhat symbolic of the group of millennials gathered under this stage, very bright and purely ideological, in turn, given that Blur has nothing to do with this in terms of age (Albarn and Coxon were born in 1968, generation X, almost boomers), and Dua Lipa, for example, is part of it: a generation that began to build a nostalgic cult of their youth long before they grew old, and therefore, in the process, grew old prematurely and remained a child forever.
Back to Blur, 55-year-old Damon Albarn, gray-haired and Ray-Ban-eyed, looks more like a fit, middle-aged writer than a downtrodden pop star. Graham Coxon, on the fringes of the stage, has the same anti-star pose of his heyday, but now, instead of anguish, he radiates inner peace; when it comes to singing Coffee and TV he smiles patiently, like a rusty artist giving in to a request for an encore on a special evening.
I don’t want to dwell on Albarn’s tears, but there’s one more thing that doesn’t sit well with me: Blur is one of the coldest pop bands I know. None of their best songs are about love and almost none about feelings at all.
ruthless man AND country house they are tongue-tied to the British upper class yearning for a cottage in the countryside, girls and boys to the lower class who emigrate en masse to Greek beaches in the summer to get laid. IN Coffee and TV Coxon talks about his alcoholism, but as a creative writing project. Gentle this gospel is as touching as it is impersonal. Universal AND End of the century they target Blair’s belief in progress, but mostly because of posturing, given that Albarn came very close to running for Labor during the same period. Even It’s lowwhich, if you like, could be confused with a love ballad whose lyrics are full of Beatles nonsense and about the weather, if anything at all: Albarn wrote it after hearing on TV that a low-pressure front was about to hit the shores of Britain. .
Why then are the former boys nostalgic, lazily squeezed under the stage, in tight shirts, with thinning hair, now married, now fathers, now divorced, not knowing whether to raise their hands to the chorus life in the park or maintain a dignified detachment?
To paraphrase one critic of the time, Oasis won (in terms of sales, popularity, immediate cultural impact) the millennial battle for Britpop, but Blur won the war. The smart rock of the Gallagher brothers today is good at best for bonfires on the beach, and the irony, detachment, quotes and eccentric sounds of Blur are that part of that world that has survived to this day under the multifaceted label Of indie.
In my opinion, millennials tonight are not nostalgic for anything, and at least not for anything real. Art and nostalgia work the same way: outright lies that we pretend to believe in the hope that it will serve as a portal to some deeper truth.
Perhaps I avoid this rite only because I see everything from above, as from a stage in a theater. We are here with Trainline, the train ticket booking portal, which reports a 122% increase in the number of passengers who, like me, arrived in Lucca by train (for this concert) and who, having organized a real experience for us, with a delicious buffet (and memorable midnight garlic, oil and chili that awaits us after the concert, but we don’t know it yet) placed us in a Sky Box with seating and complimentary drinks that make it easy, shall we say, to put anything in perspective.
After the concert and after-party, returning to the station, I pass by a beautiful stage: in any bar there are tables on the street and Best of Blur is playing, at least fifty girls and guys are dancing. girls and boys, are clearly returning from a concert, but the average age seems much lower and there is much more frivolity, girls tie their shirts above their navels, boys scream and sweat without hesitation, everyone has an idiotic smile on their faces, perhaps because they are drunk, or maybe maybe there is something else. It occurs to me that maybe in 2023 Blur in the record is more relevant and relevant than Blur in the flesh, maybe it’s an idiotic thought but I guarantee you I mean it as a compliment.
Born in Genoa on the day Truman Capote died in Bel Air, after a long process of self-realization, he resigned himself to the idea that it was just a coincidence. A graduate of International Relations and Holden, he has worked extensively in European institutions, writing for Last Man, Minimum and Moralia, Pandora and other newspapers. In 2018, he joined Esquire Italia, where he is now Managing Editor for Digital. He has also written two books and several screenplays.