What a concert from Blur last Sunday Night @ City Sound Festival in Milan! This kind of gigs reminds me that there are 2 classes (if not more) of live performers: those who get the job done and those who rock 2 hours of your fans’ life. Blur are definitely into the second group!

In Milan the band replicated more or less the same setlist they executed the night before @Paleo festival in Nyon, with one exception that was worth the trip: “To The End” played life for the first time since 2009!

As usual I won’t bother your with a long concert review, we will go for our Top 10 moments of the concert in Milan:

1. Song 2: obvious choice? Probably, but who cares? The song closed the concert in mayhem, the live version with Graham Coxon going Nirvana-style in terms of guitar fx is even more punky and jumpy than the album version. If you loved this song from back in the 90s you cannot miss seeing it played life once in your life!
2. To The End: this song is probably not among their most famous hit but for any Blur’s fan, hearing this life was a gift worth the ticket price.
3. Coffee & TV: a Tune (capital T) and the presence on stage of Milky (the milk carton character) made it unique, we are still debating if it was planned from the band or it was somebody that came dressed like that to the concert, as we saw somebody leaving still dressed like that at the end of the gig we concluded it was a fan. If you were there, tell us the truth! 🙂
4. For Tomorrow: from Modern Life is Rubbish of 1993, the “la-la-la-la” sing along of the whole crowd at the end of the song still gives us goose bumps
5. Parklife: another song that sounds much more rock’n’roll live vs. the album, Damon shouted the talked part stretching his vocal skills while all the fans shouted “Parklife”, I looked around and to my surprise we had traveled back in time and we were in the middle of the 90s, brit rock was on, we were all young and happy
6. The Universal – it came just before Song 2 for another massive chorus sung from the ecstatic crowd over “It really, really, really could happen”, it was indeed, our lucky day!
7. Country House – one of the fans favorite, looks like half of the crowd grew up with the chorus of the song! It probably deserved a higher spot but this top 10 is reveling to be really though!
8. Under the Westway – the latest song released by the band is already a classic!
9. Popscene – one of the oldest song of their setlist (from 1992!), never released as part of an album, kicks in as the second song and reminds us that we are witnessing one of the main actors of the brit-pop war, you cannot get more “90s” than this!
10. Tender – “oh my baby, oh my baby” and the rest, as we say, it’s history

Just when Song 2 faded in our ears, while hoping that they would go on forever we realized that we were back in the oven of the Milan hippodrome, it’s not 1993 but it’s 20 years later, 2013. Still, Blur have proven us that they are aging well, their discography filled of hits, B-sides, hidden songs, unreleased singles, break-ups and come back is rich enough for them to comfortably deliver all their singles while surprising us with older gems (To The End) over a 2 hours long concert. Damon Albarn and Graham Coxon are one of the best live duos you can get around a stage these days.

Long live Rock’n’Roll, live music, summer festivals and obviously, Blur, bring on the new album and keep on rocking in a free (brit) world. That’s the way Blur (and us with them) roll!

Only negative point of the night: who was the mentally disabled director of the screen cameras? If you weren’t close enough it would have been impossible to follow the gig on the screens given that the camera were constantly late in following the band members’ or fixed on Damon Albarn… Mysteries of life.

Click here for the full concert’s setlist

Hey Hey, My My, it really really really happen(ed)

Supersonik