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Blur Release ‘Parklive’ Concert Album of Possible Final Show

Harry Enfield and Damon Albarn / Photo by Getty Images

Blur have released their entire Sunday night concert at London’s Hyde Park for download, an called Parklive, mere hours after they left the stage. What makes the show special, though, is that the concert, at which the Britpop archetypes played alongside New Order and the Specials (a better lineup than watching David Bowie vids across town), might have been the band’s last. For the better part of this year, frontman Damon Albarn has been flip-flopping about the status of the band, calling them done then backtracking. Then the group, who recently issued a comprehensive box set (read our guide to the rarities here), released two new songs, one of which Albarn had premiered solo after some muttering at a show in June.

Regardless of the status, all reports of Blur’s Hyde Park shows have been positive, and judging from the set list below, they drew most heavily from their 1994 album Parklife, which is their best-selling LP in the U.K. Albarn dedicated “Song 2,” from their best-selling album in the U.S. (1997’s self-titled release), to double-gold-medal winner Mo Farah and reportedly recreated a section of the London roadway the Westway for new song “Under the Westway,” according to Rolling Stone. Comedians Phil Daniels and Harry Enfield dressed in drag and brought a tea trolley with them for “Parklife,” the U.K’s Independent reported. When all was said and done, though, the group made no comment about the state of the band.

For now, the live recording, Parklive, is available for download via iTunes and the group intends to release a limited-edition double-CD of the concert, complete with a bonus disc of unreleased live tracks from their warmup shows, sometime this week. Then, as Pitchfork reports, in November, Blur will release a five-disc set, containing the three previously mentioned discs, plus a DVD of the Hyde Park concert and a CD titled Blur Live at the 100 Club, recorded in August. This set will be accompanied by a 60-page hardcover book, containing exclusive photos from both shows. If this is the end, they’re pulling out all the stops.

Blur set list (courtesy of setlist.fm): “Girls & Boys”
“London Loves”
“Tracy Jacks”
“Jubilee”
“Beetlebum”
“Coffee & TV”
“Out of Time”
“Young and Lovely”
“Trimm Trabb”
“Caramel”
“Sunday Sunday”
“Country House”
“Parklife”
“Colin Zeal”
“Popscene”
“Advert”
“Song 2”
“No Distance Left to Run”
“Tender”
“This Is a Low”
Encore:
“Sing”
“Under the Westway”
“Intermission”
“End of a Century”
“For Tomorrow”
“The Universal”