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.įrom 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. to 50")- and a city still gleeful and staggering from that post-Olympic high. 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. 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.
Still, thanks to the clear and appropriately bombastic mix, Parklive certainly doesn't sound like a rush job.
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.
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