Damon Albarn should not have expected a warmer reception when Blur took to the Coachella stage this year. He had suffered the same shamefully uninterested crowd two decades before, without Graham Coxon. As grand a talent guitarist Coxon is, he was not the missing piece to make the waves of influencer-shaped pools wash up on the British pop shores. It may be less than an hour, but fatigue with their hits had settled in. A reliance on Think Tank and the electronics of their final album on the first run can be heard. Rightly so. Albarn, Alex James and Dave Rowntree attempt to push through but it sounds like a piece is missing. Coxon, naturally. But something else is not all there. Opener Ambulance hints at it and then the hits, which feel washed-out and riddled with the trouble of being a decade removed from the initial run, filter through.
Girls and Boys sounds identical. The times have moved on yet the song returns listeners to the fields of the mid-1990s. Listen to what a non-existent atmosphere can do. They may as well be playing the function room of a poorly attended baptism. Albarn sounds solid and the reflective “was” for “is” on the paranoias of love, is perhaps a sign Blur was headed towards their end. Such is the horror of Coachella. A place where notorious bands go to die. Albarn perseveres with the same rage he was hit with two decades on. He is near to begging the band to get into the rhythm of one of the better-known songs the band plays here but the request falls on deaf ears. So does the rest of the performance, unfortunately hindered by the lacklustre attendees but still quality. Out of Time feels nicely placed.
Those softer flourishes, the deeper cuts of Gene By Gene and We’ve Got a File On You, feel like a band preparing to bow out. These are the songs they hold in high esteem and yet have no place for them in the usual desire for a hits-laden set. Blur trooped on as best they could in this period, though the writing was on the wall. Excellent performances of Trimm Trabb and Song 2 are not enough to patch over the massive holes of a Coxon absence and an uninterested crowd. It is a reaction like this which kills the interest of an album like Think Tank. A shame too. An understudied and underappreciated part of their discography, although not their finest hour. Try and relight the fire as best you can, there are better places to do it than Coachella.
Blur continues a long trend of outstanding UK artists falling flat on the Coachella stage through no fault of their own. An alienation of their noise can be heard here as it can be twenty years on. Still a fascinating listen but without the atmosphere brought on by a receptive crowd, it does feel a bit more like listening to rough audio recordings clipped from the studio. Trouble with the microphone on a few songs reduces the frenetic energy, the anger bubbling underneath for Albarn, though it can be heard ripping through. Coachella 2003 would precede their final UK run in the initial Blur formation. Whatever happened after is a crowning triumph and proof they can still perform at their very best. And yet, the audience across the pond has no idea what they are listening to.
