Current mood:	oh my baby oh my baby oh why
Current music:	Oily Water - Blor

It looks like we might have made it
A friend called to ask if I wanted a ticket for Blur at face value. Sure, why not? I didn't realise that face value meant 50 quid. FIFTY QUID! That's loads - the most I've ever paid to see a gig. Even Prince was only 37 pounds something. And he had to pay for his flight from America and probably got his costumes hand made.

Still, I needed cheering up so off I went. I have to say, Hyde Park is a brilliant place for a gig. It's like having Glastonbury in your garden. But there's no mud, no endless queues, no shit other bands getting in the way, no camping. The bar even had waitress service. Brilliant.

Blur came on at 8.15 sharp to the strains of one of them waltzy oompah songs that all sound the same. Maybe Intermission? One of them ones. They opened with She's So High and banged through all the hits. Except for Bang. And the two awful ones off of The Great Escape. And maybe some of the later ones that everybody's forgotten about anyway.

Best bits? Plenty to choose from. Tender, which sounded weedy on the Glastonbury clip I saw, was massive and actually made me cry (see also To The End, Death of a Party, Badhead and the British Gas ad). The crowd were still singing it after the next song had started. In fact the crowd was singing along so much they really didn't need the motley collection of backing singers they'd brought along that looked like rejects from X-Factor. The brass section was used to good effect, though, on stuff like For Tomorrow, Popscene and a surprisingly entertaining Country House. The band looked like they were really enjoying playing that one too. I suppose it's their Yellow Submarine. Shit but fun.

Dave was the only one who'd aged noticeably, but then he always looked ancient. The curse of the ginge. The lights flashed "VOTE DAVE" as a wink to his unlikely new career as a Labour politician, during the interminable intro to Song 2. Alex looked exactly the same as he did when he used to get mistaken for me, down to the fag hanging from mouth. Damon was beefier than he used to be but miraculously his hair appears to have grown back. That man is truly in league with the devil. Graham started off with his annoying librarian shuffle thing that he does but soon ditched his specs and gave the wildest performance I've ever seen him do. There was an amazing bit in Popscene (or it might have been Advert - one of the mental fast ones anyway) where he fell over and somehow managed to roll over on his back while still playing the guitar. It was brilliant. He's quite nifty on the old banjo, it has to be said.

What else? Phil Daniels came on and gurned through the morons' favourite. It's a shame they didn't get Paul Daniels on for a change. I'd have liked that. Not a lot, but I'd have liked it. Damon stopped to tie his shoe laces before some mad jogging during Sunday Sunday. He gave some waffly speech which I think might have been against the war in Iraq, although I didn't really know what he was on about to be honest. He looked quite choked and uncharacteristically humble too. And the sunset was lovely. You're all going to see it tonight anyway. Have fun. You'll love it.

Fifty quid, though, fucking hell.