Wednesday 16th April 2014, The O2 Arena, London
This Blue World instrumental
Charge
The Bones of You
Fly Boy Blue / Lunette – trampoline. End of.
Real Life (Angel) When someone is hurting and you cannot do anything to help, all you can do is suggest they drink rather a lot.
The Night Will Always Win – Same vibe as above, although I didn’t cry this time. Guy spoke of the how to cope when someone has died, the importance of missing them in a room with people who also miss them, often with a glass of the person’s favourite tipple.
New York Morning
The Loneliness of a Tower Crane Driver
Great Expectations
The Blanket of Night – About how people fleeing their homelands and coming to this country are vilified as if they are pirates coming aboard your ship and stealing your gold.
Mirrorball
The Birds
Grounds for Divorce – obviously this one gets everyone off their arses and dancing.
Elsewhere Guys usual invitations to clap and wave along don’t seem to be as instantly accepted as other venues. But we do get a brilliant moment where he asks everyone to sing out names of lizards, I’m doing it no justice but seriously when you hear thousands of people sing back the word “Chameleon”, you have heard it all. It actually sounded a lot like a collective Brian Blessed (Gordon’s Aliiiiive) impression.***
My Sad Captains
Beautiful things happen when Guy thinks about friends and alcolhol. Wonderful songs about lost opportunities, missed trains and absent friends can result. Long may Guy Garvey continue to ponder and look and muse, and long may this band continue to give his words the music to float on.
Starlings
Lippy Kids
One Day Like This
All these songs mean something different, I can tell you that exactly but I don’t think that is what it’s about, it’s about what they mean to everyone who hears them on a personal level. It doesn’t really matter what song was written about a girl on a bus who didn’t even realise, it resonates with people because we’ve all tried to act like we haven’t dreamed of what if. We’ve all been suddenly hit with romance like the horn crashes in Starlings and we have all felt what happens when that love goes away.
As this is the last night of the tour this will probably be the last word I say on the album too. It got to number one you know. Isn’t that good? Tour wise, they went with the last three albums and not so much with the first three but the songs they chose fit the theme of the tour (and the Take Off and Landing… album as it happens; friendship, love, past, future, hope and loss and regret. Never too much of one, never too little of the other, balance;
The take off is just as important as the landing, after all.
There will be more from Eden in the summer but for now, I’m knackered. Hello Prestwich, hello bed.
*** If you know who that is, good. If you don’t, that’s fine but you should probably watch more telly.
Given to Sounds 