This might sound a little strange, but Primavera is a little bit like Manchester United.
It is slightly frowned upon if any one act is bigger than the festival itself, but you can’t escape the fact that purely from a punter’s point of view, Nick Cave, My Bloody Valentine and the Jesus & Mary Chain are all playing second fiddle to the first European concert of the year from Damon Albarn’s boys.
It is still frequently overlooked just how good Blur are live. This Friday night headline set serves a stunning singalong reminder, blasting out of the traps with the apt Eurodisco pop of ‘Girls & Boys’, a furiously energetic version of ‘Popscene’, and a surprisingly fresh and youthful sounding ‘There’s No Other Way’.
You get the sense that the quartet first championed by the late Dublin music journalist Leo Finlay are having one of those very special nights. The running order of the encore set alone says it all – last year’s gorgeous classic Blur ballad ‘Under The Westway’, which contains my favourite Blur lyric, ‘Paradise not lost/ It’s in you,’ the soulful neo-mod pop stomp of ‘For Tomorrow’, the elegiac curtain closing melodrama of ‘The Universal’, and, finally, the uproarious ‘Song 2’.
This emotionally-charged show on the Catalan coast bodes ever so well for an absolutely cracking night in Kilmainham.
Eamon Sweeney