 'Obviously, we've been waiting for this moment all of our lives,' Blur's jubilant frontman Damon Albarn declared shortly after kicking off their first night at Wembley. These weren't hollow words to rev up the 90,000-strong crowd. Damon, who at various points through the two-hour-long set swiveled his hips, jumped for joy and rushed out to the front row, really meant it. More than 30 years after the release of their debut album, the Britpop rockers were headlining the football stadium for the very first time. While some members have pursued considerably less rockstar pursuits in the intervening years – bassist Alex James a farmer and cheesemaker and drummer Dave Rowntree a former Norfolk Labour councillor – the group were match fit. This was despite fears the Wembley dates could be called off after Blur were forced to cancel a recent French festival date due to Dave suffering a knee injury. But he didn't miss a beat. Guitarist Graham Coxon's performance, too, was a masterstroke of musicianship. The gig kicked off with new single St Charles Square before the foursome launched into their classic hits like Coffee and TV and Under the Westway. By far the biggest singalong was to Parklife – one of the defining songs of the Britpop era when it was released in 1994. To view this video please enable JavaScript, and consider upgrading to a web browser that supports HTML5 video They were joined on stage by the London Community Gospel Choir (Picture: Tom Pallant/Good Machine) 90,000 people chanted Blur's hits like Parklife (Picture: Tom Pallant/Good Machine) For good measure, Phil Daniels popped out of a workman's tent on stage to perform his vocals. Sending the Eastenders actor off after a riotous performance, Damon joked: 'You've got to go to bed now. Night Night.' It wasn't Damon's only wry aside during the set. At one point, the singer jokingly recoiled after noticing the sea of concert-g){kind=link}
NEWS… BUT NOT AS YOU KNOW IT
‘Obviously, we’ve been waiting for this moment all of our lives,’ Blur’s jubilant frontman Damon Albarn declared shortly after kicking off their first night at Wembley.
These weren’t hollow words to rev up the 90,000-strong crowd. Damon, who at various points through the two-hour-long set swiveled his hips, jumped for joy and rushed out to the front row, really meant it.
More than 30 years after the release of their debut album, the Britpop rockers were headlining the football stadium for the very first time. While some members have pursued considerably less rockstar pursuits in the intervening years – bassist Alex James a farmer and cheesemaker and drummer Dave Rowntree a former Norfolk Labour councillor – the group were match fit.
This was despite fears the Wembley dates could be called off after Blur were forced to cancel a recent French festival date due to Dave suffering a knee injury. But he didn’t miss a beat. Guitarist Graham Coxon’s performance, too, was a masterstroke of musicianship.