Blur have spent most of 2012 toying with our heartstrings. First Damon Albarn announced that, after a performance at the Olympic Closing Ceremony Concert in Hyde Park, the long-lived, notoriously volatile band would be calling it a day. A few weeks later Albarn backpedaled and said that wasn't necessarily the case ("Some days I feel one way and other days I feel the other."). Then, in what felt like a definitive mark in the "stay together for the kids" column, they released a pair of singles. Preliminary sessions were underway for a new album; then the album was scrapped. So, when the band insists that that Hyde Park performance, now immortalized as a live album called Parklive, will indeed be its last, they can forgive us for feeling a little skeptical. And dizzy.
Hurried out to iTunes a day after the Closing Ceremony show and following a recent avalanche of archival releases, Parklive comes to us as speedily and inevitably as a Usain Bolt 100-meter victory. Still, thanks to the clear and appropriately bombastic mix, Parklive certainly doesn't sound like a rush job. In fact, judging by all the tweets from the cheap seats complaining about Hyde Park's soundsystem (and the boos audible to my ears when Albarn asks early in the set if they can hear him in the back), Parklive sounds even better than the real thing. It's a transcendent and exuberant 25-song set, capturing the infectious energy of a 21-year-old live band still riding an impossibly prolonged peak-- Albarn has to make an age-appropriate revision to the lyrics of "End of a Century" ("The mind gets dirty/ As you get closer... to 50")-- and a city still gleeful and staggering from that post-Olympic high. Following the recent release of the career-spanning Blur 21 box set, at a moment when the band's legacy is in the process of being revisited, argued, and revised, it's hard to imagine the serendipitously timed Parklive not ousting the competition-- namely 2009's All the People or the two live performances included on Blur 21-- to become Blur's definitive live release.
From the tone-setting and rowdy opener "Girls & Boys" onward (the only hint that it's not actually the golden Brit Pop year of 1994 is the subtle, faintly poignant past-tense Albarn sneaks in: "Love in the 90s was paranoid"), the set is heavy on the sort of pop anthems that fit the crowd's celebratory, post-Olympic mood. There are plenty of fittingly direct explicit addresses to their home city, from a rousing version of Parklife's "London Loves" ("This song is called 'London Loves'. And WE LOVE LONDON!") right through to a call and response chant of "London!" during the penultimate "For Tomorrow". Suffice to say that when Phil Daniels comes out to bark out his iconic lines in "Parklife", this is a crowd that remains in a sustained state of apeshitness for the whole three-and-a-half minutes.
Blur, of course, have a back catalog full of songs to fit all sorts of moods, but what makes Parklive a better listening experience than some of their other live recordings is how cohesive the entire set's energy feels. Much of the credit here should go to the formidable, too-often-unsung rhythm section that is Dave Rowntree and Alex James: They keep even the set's moodiest material here bobbing along with a brisk, agreeable gait. There are a few moments when it doesn't quite work (this comparatively buoyant live version of "No Distance Left to Run" doesn't hold a candle to the original), but overall the affect is positive: Check out the way the band teases out the latent pop sensibility of 13's atmospheric "Trim Trabb" and "Caramel", adding a new dimension to the songs.
Some of the biggest goosebump moments, though, come from the songs that fall somewhere between anthemic stadium pop and smudgy mood pieces. Even an insomniac's obsessive YouTube expedition to listen to every live version of "Beetlebum" ever (trust me) would probably not uncover a version showcasing a better vocal from Albarn, let alone an instrumental finale that rises to the occasion quite like Graham Coxon's squalling solo does here. Elsewhere, the brassy, pitch-perfect closer "The Universal" showers the crowd with generous handfuls of sonic confetti, and live favorite "Tender" is, as always, divine. Coxon's bluesy refrain, "Oh my babyyyy," has become the "Freebird!" of Blur shows-- you can hear some strains of it travel, request-like, through the crowd while the band tunes up for another song earlier in the set. Backed by gospel singers, Albarn's vocal is powerful, but the audience feels like the frontpeople on this 9-plus-minute rendition as they steer the mantra-like refrain rippling through the park. Tens of thousands of voices strong, it's still got an intimacy about it, like the biggest, greatest campfire singalong ever.
Parklive showcases Blur in top form, but live albums are about a little more than a band; they document a moment too. The band was smart to rush the digital release last week, while the world's still experiencing a post-Olympic hangover, and the performance captures the city that's always been their muse at its most jubilant. By the time Parklive sees a full DVD release in November, who knows if they'll have once again changed their tune about this performance being their last; personally (and especially since they're a band that's always thrived amidst a stormy internal dynamic) I believe them about as much as I believed that The Black Album was Jay-Z's retirement record. But in the off chance that this is the last we ever hear from Blur, it's hard to imagine a band going out with a more triumphant victory lap.
