“Tender is the night/ lying by your side”: Yes, the night is tender in front of the magnificent historic walls of Lucca: The 35,000 mostly forty-year-olds (and surroundings) who flocked here are very happy when the credits of their generational band Blur roll by. Just meeting the four from Colchester, who forged what is known as Britpop along with neighbors, friend-foes Oasis and a handful of other bands, has the flavor of a generational rendezvous: immersed in their quarrel-reconciliation maelstrom, Blur come to our area once a decade and meet their fans, who gradually become teenagers, young adults and fathers.
But like the last time in Milan and Rome in 2013, here in Lucca this return does not know a stale and even more comfortable rendezvous: Damon Albarn and Graham Coxon, voice and guitar, architrave of the band of children and then often described as dog and cat, here they walk shoulder to shoulder in an amorous exchange that confirms the fact that this reunion is not intended to pay for the children in the RSET or the Bentley parked in the garage. They fulfilled their teenage dreams at Wembley Stadium, where they played two very packed nights a few days ago, but they seem to be having fun in Lucca too, with a line-up geared towards the teenage-teen crowd crammed into the walls. Because the songs of the successful latest album The Ballad of Darren are only three (the introspective and very beautiful The Narcissist for example): The rest is pure revivalism, fresh 90s revivalism.
Yes, all the band’s anthems ring out: Beetlebum and Country House, Parklife and Girls & Boys. Albarn proves that at 55 he still has an important voice and an always theatrical attitude: he jumps on stage like a cricket and even goes stage diving at one point, singing “End of a Century” to the audience. But maybe we’d forgotten how punky Blur was: Coxon’s guitar chops are in Advert and Song 2. And when pesky technical issues prevent him from singing his forte “Coffee & Tv,” he takes his time and jokes with Damon. In short: everyone was satisfied: on stage, in the audience. Because you can choose how you age: badly, by denying yourself and who we were. Well, despite so many vicissitudes, I’m aware that I shaped a season and a generation. Because as they sing in The Universal chorus finale, “It could really, really, really happen.” What could have happened we don’t know, what happened is on everyone’s lips (and ears). And the night is tender over Lucca.