The long awaited Blur reunion: a night of nostalgic spectacle, which I was sadly in the wrong frame of mind to truly appreciate.

It’s an odd experience, getting older as a music fan. You slowly watch the bands of your youth become legacy acts, no longer the cutting edge stars of today but aging along with you into creaky middle age, occasionally reuniting for, as Mansun somewhat prophetically put it, ‘one more greatest hits tour for the devotees’. In 2025, of course, it will be the turn of Oasis, but summer 2023 was all about their supposed arch-rivals of the 90s, Blur.

Blur were one of many bands that soundtracked my youth. I went to three fantastic gigs by them in 1997 and 2003, with their stunning Astoria show in May 2003 standing strong in my memory of just how brilliant the band can be live. Upon reviving my gigging life in my 40s, they were one band that I was most excited to see again, should the opportunity arise.

Finally, on the 16th of November 2022, my dream of once again buying a ticket to see Blur live came true. I remember the untouchable joy, just after 10 that morning when I’d procured my golden circle ticket, and the thrill of imagining what it would be like to see this unique and brilliant band again. And then that afternoon, a bit before 3pm, my euphoric mood was shattered when a call came through from my Dad’s care home in Canada to let me know that he’d passed away overnight.

It’s unfair to Blur that I can’t think about this gig without thinking about the day I bought the ticket, but life is never fair. I wish I could say that when the day of this gig came I made my way to Wembley and had a truly amazing time, despite it bringing up reminders of the horrible day I bought my ticket. But the clouds that had gathered in my mind were unfortunately there to stay for the day, and so my long-awaited Blur experience was not as thrilling as I’d hoped it would be.

I should actually have seen them a couple of months earlier at their warm up show in Newcastle, but a last minute train cancellation left me unable to get to that city in time. I do wish now that I’d had the chance to see them in that more intimate venue, at a gig with no connections to one of the worst days of my life.

But here I was, finally seeing Blur again after almost two decades. So, how were they? Given that this review is nearly a year and a half delayed, let me revert to the format of my All the Gigs Of My Life Series, and quote from my diary:

‘Blur! They were great but it wasn’t quite as astoundingly amazing as I expected. But how could they be, when you’re standing on a football pitch?’

I’d arrived during the support set from Self Esteem, I first took a spot close to the front but to the far side. However, the unhinged racket emanating from the stage forced me to venture further out, and I took a wander round the whole of the Gold Circle area before deciding on a spot a bit further back but more central.

From this vantage point I watched as the huge ‘blur’ logo was gently lowered towards the stage, which was quite exciting, and did my best to soak in the vibes of the Big Event. Nice as it was to experience a big stadium spectacle, it also reminded me why I rarely go to the big stadium spectacles. The hugeness of everything makes for a heightened sense of occasion, but also makes it harder to feel a real connection to the band onstage.

Blur finally came on stage were, of course, fantastic. How could they not be? Damon leapt about the stage with his ever-present exuberance and energy, and they rattled through a setlist of greatest hits and surprising rarities. I was particularly pleased to hear several tracks from “Modern Life Is Rubbish”, one of my all time favourite eras of the band.

Another unexpected highlight for me was “Country House”, their much maligned 1995 tune which famously won the battle for number one with Oasis. Even back then I was team Blur, and always held a sneaky affection for this tune, and on this night it quite frankly sounded amazing, all bouncy melodic mayhem. The melancholy mid-song refrain of “Blow, blow me out, I am so sad, I don’t know why” matched my less than gigtastic mood perfectly.

Classic tune after classic tune rolled by. My favourite Blur songs tend to be on the more downbeat side, and they did not disappoint tonight: “Beetlebum” full of gorgeous despair, “End of a Century” with its sigh of sadness at the coming millennium, and “Out of Time” a resigned reflection on the aches of aging and passing time. The pinnacle for me was “This Is A Low”, which provided for me the one truly glorious, immersive, emotional arms-in-the-air moment of the evening. Somehow “this is a low, but it won’t hurt you” were exactly the words I needed to hear.

And most importantly for me, I finally got to hear “For Tomorrow” live once again, after missing several opportunities in recent years. When this song was released in 1993, it seemed to crystallise everything that I yearned for about being young and in London in the 90s, and urged me on towards moving to that city, which by the time of this night in Wembley Stadium, had been my home for more than a quarter of a century,

But, great as it all was, I found myself unable to fully immerse myself in the joy of finally seeing Blur live again after all these years. I made my way out during the final song “The Universal”, and walking up the stairs to the exit to the sound of those sweepingly bombastically melancholy strings, it felt like I was leaving something more than just a Blur gig. Maybe I was leaving behind that version of me for whom gigs are My Thing, the number one most important thing. As Damon was singing in that very moment, “When the days they seem to fall through you, well just let them go“.

Luckily, this mood was short lived, and I was back in the gigging swing of things less than two months later. And then collapsed into despair again a short while after that. The truth is, in 2023 I was not very well at all, wading through acres of grief that I didn’t even fully understand at the time, and I’m sad that it means that my one Blur experience of their reunion was not one that I can remember with joy. If they ever re-emerge from their hiatus and the opportunity arises to see them again – perhaps at a slightly less colossal venue – I will definitely jump at the chance.

And for all the negativity I associate with this gig, looking back at it from a much more stable place here at the end of 2024, I’m so glad I went. I got to experience Blur’s incredible back catalogue of songs once again, and to find out – eventually – that I’m still holding on for tomorrow.