Carhaix-Plouguer (France) (AFP) – Spared by the driving rain of the day, Blur, flagship group of Britpop, released a beautiful electrical storm on the night of Friday to Saturday at the Vieilles Charrues, a major French festival.
Published on: 07/15/2023 – 01:02Modified on: 07/15/2023 – 01:00
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This stunning show in Brittany of the original quartet that topped the bill in the 1990s — they are all over 50 — comes a week before the release of “The Ballad of Darren”. It is the ninth studio album and only the second in the last 20 years. The British formation has never separated but its history has been written in ellipsis since 2003.
Two men carried the concert. Damon Albarn, 55, mastermind and singer, and Graham Coxon, 54, gifted guitarist. Their complicity is not artificial as for other reformations of groups for lucrative tours. The pair still like each other since they first met, when Albarn was 13 and Coxon was 12.
Albarn is still this facetious showman. “I adore you France”, “this evening I am Breton”, he dropped in French during this concert of just over 1h30. And to harangue the crowd with a primal cry on the microphone or with a megaphone gimmick.
The British group Blur during a concert at the Vieilles Charrues festival, July 14, 2023 in Brittany © Damien MEYER / AFP
When the hit “Girls & Boys” (1994) arrives after an hour, the singer, glued to the audience at the bottom of the stage, grabs Elton John-style glasses and a striped hat held out by the crowd.
“Who are they?”
“There are very young people here, you must be wondering + but who the fuck are they? +, you will ask your parents”, he laughs in English.
“It’s like traveling back in time, the public is young again, it’s weird, you sometimes forget where you are”, had also recently commented to AFP Albarn, during an interview given. in Paris.
At his side, Coxon makes the lightning speak. There is no other way to put 70,000 people in your pocket: chain the riffs, like with “There’s no other way” (1991) placed in 2nd position of the set-list.
Coxon, who will change guitar practically with each piece, will never lower the intensity, culminating with the epidermal “Song 2” (1997).
The guitarist of the British group Blur Graham Coxon during a concert at the Vieilles Charrues festival, July 14, 2023 in Brittany © Damien MEYER / AFP
The Vieilles Charrues concert leaves little room for new songs from the future album, aligning the group’s classics in a jukebox style.
The public’s attention is thus captured, which Robbie Williams failed to do the day before, too talkative between songs and who disconcerted the audience, known to be one of the most festive in France.
Inventiveness
On “Coffee & TV” (1999), all the guitarist’s inventiveness is concentrated in a distorted solo. Coxon also redesigned “Tender” (1999), originally a bittersweet title, to make it resonate at a major festival (280,000 people in total over four days last year, a balance sheet likely to be exceeded for this edition in five days ).
Blur singer Damon Albarn during a concert by the group at the Vieilles Charrues festival, July 14, 2023 in Brittany © Damien MEYER / AFP
“We dreamed of welcoming them, of having Damon Albarn on the only project of his that we had not had at the Vieilles Charrues” confides to AFP the director of the festival, Jérôme Tréhorel.
In the history of this event, Albarn had joined in 2015 on stage for a few Tony Allen titles. This drummer, a pillar of Afrobeat, collaborator of Fela Kuti, rubbed shoulders with the Englishman in the supergroup The Good, The Bad & The Queen with Paul Simonon, ex-bassist of The Clash.
And Albarn was back on stage at Les Vieilles Charrues in 2018 at the head of Gorillaz, his variable geometry collective.
The arrival of Blur and the impeccable unfolding of his set had something to delight the public and Jérôme Tréhorel, a declared fan of Britpop.
Blur singer Damon Albarn during a concert by the group at the Vieilles Charrues festival, July 14, 2023 in Brittany © Damien MEYER / AFP
“I listen to their new single + St. Charles Square + over and over, a title that I find super rock”, confesses the person in charge of the meeting. The public also appreciated this beautiful firework of decibels on this night of the French national holiday.
© 2023 AFP
2023-07-14 23:37:24
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