Tribute to the Lokerse Feesten! At the festival of the patron of the horse sausage, they like to appear modest, yet the organization strictly selects at least one name for each edition that will make the mouths of the assembled competition fall open. This year it was Blur’s comeback that surprised. You could hear the woo-hoos blowing from bushes and along Waasland roads for weeks, that’s how hard the part of humanity that grew up in the nineties looked forward to this.
Jasper Van Loy9 augustus 2023, 07:52
There is an immediate caveat to this: the author of this article does not belong to that target group. Even more, the battle of the Britpop between Blur and Oasis passed me by because I was simply too busy blowing out my first birthday candle. Nevertheless, I was looking forward to Damon Albarn who, after eight years, once again hit the road with his primal band, especially now that they recently gave birth to a world record with The Ballad of Darren.
From that throw ‘St. Charles Square’ opening the evening: daring, but not bursting with conviction as Albarn barely rose above the mix. Then oldie ‘Popscene’ did much better a few minutes later: a song that settles in your head and afterwards you have no idea why. The kind of song that Blur has a patent on, in other words.
Albarn and his friends – in addition to the hired keyboardist, are still Graham Coxon on guitar, Dave Rowntree on drums and Alex James on bass – only ignored ‘Think Tank’ (2003) and ‘The Magic Whip’ (2015), got further all records covered in the introductory or refresher course focused on one of the best British bands of this era.
“Beetlebum” saw Rowntree slurping his mug on the big screen just before Graham Coxon kicked in De Riff. ‘Coffee & TV’ was just as nice and laconic, ‘Country House’ and ‘Parklife’ split the set in half with two punches. ‘To The End’ was the moment for fan Maxim to come and sing on stage, ‘Girls & Boys’ and ‘Song 2’ were sung by everyone.
Besides the hits, it was especially the walking around, hopping, bubbling with pleasure and bending over the audience Damon Albarn who gave this reunion shine and kept this audience of all generations on their toes. During ‘Barbaric’, still a kind of hit in all its muddle, you saw him getting younger: is there a cleaner snot on the British Isles?
Blur, Lokerse Feesten, 2023Image Koen Keppens
Around him was a band with confidence, and there is even hard evidence for that statement: the British had casually parked new single ‘The Narcissist’ in the bisronde, just before the faithful ‘The Universal’. Neat between the lines, didn’t hit a curb. It was the end of an hour and a half of rain-soaked, but above all balanced nostalgia refreshed with fresh songs, which never brought the atmosphere that we didn’t even secretly hope for after reading the reviews about the British shows. But look, we saw Blur and it was a pleasure. Thank you, Lokeren!
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2023-08-09 05:52:03
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