Villa Blur

I 100% agree with everything that's been said about the setlist. It goes back to 2009 I suppose -- in general the setlists since the reunion have erred way too much on 1993-1995, bizarrely so at times, particularly when you consider that a) the post-1997 material would be much kinder to Damon's lower register, and b) if getting the band back together isn't about nostalgia, why keep showing only one facet of the many that this band has?

Death of a Party (great addition in Coachella tbf), Ambulance, Bugman, Ghost Ship, Ice Cream Man, Battle, Strange News, Trailerpark...all songs they should have been playing instead of doing Jubilee and Country House again and again.

That said I will probably go back to this live album more than I ever did to Parklive and Hyde Park 2009. Damon's voice is obviously older and more damaged but (at least at the beginning of the show) he seems more in command of it. The vocals in the 2009 and 2012 albums are mostly just him shouting, particularly in the rowdier numbers, while in the past tour he did try to sing again. I also much prefer the roughness of it to the arena-band-but-not-quite vibe of the previous tours

Would have loved to hear most of those (not a fan of Ice Cream Man or Magic Whip generally all that much) though I agree that Death of a Party was a good addition. A bit more from S/T generally wouldn't have gone amiss actually, and as you say, later albums would have been good for Damon's voice these days.

From the Wembley set list I would have lost:

• Tracy Jacks – totally bored of that song. I really didn't want to hear it live again.
• Sunday Sunday – again, heard it enough.
• Villa Rosie – it's alright, but there's better songs
• Advert
• There's No Other Way – never been too fussed about it.

Other than that, Country House, as we all know, was never going to be left out, especially at Wembley. As much as that gig felt more like communing with 80,000 like-minded friends than any other large scale concert I've been to, I still saw plenty of the crowd just turn off the moment the big tunes stopped – noticed it at the switch from Beetlebum to Trimm Trabb, for example. TT kicked in, lack of immediate recognition dawned and out came the phones until something else came along. And then imagine we add in some of our favourites instead...

Am I mad to think that maybe (maybe...) they could have done something noisy, punky and aggressive with Crazy Beat? Really scuzz it up and (obviously) without any duck noises. Could get a big crowd moving like Popscene but something a bit different?

The album entered the chart at just number six in the end then. The other album it was supposedly up against for the number one spot entered even lower so so much for those predictions. Blur’s sales must have really dropped off after the midweek point.

https://www.officialcharts.com/charts/albums-chart/

I received the picture disc version of the two disc Wembley album today. Looks really nice. A different shot from the show on each side. Hand numbered on the back – the copy I received is 2,077 of 4,000. Prompted me to go back on the site to see how popular they have been. Looking at Blood Records, it appears there are still a good 1,500 or so units left so clearly not massively in demand, but there if anyone still fancies picking one up. Then again, it doesn't seem like the picture disc was given any publicity at all. I only found out about it via Freestyle45 on here.