Damon Albarn, review: a slow-burn evening that finally caught light

Damon Albarn, the Blur and Gorillaz frontman (and, he informed us, recently awarded citizen of Iceland), could barely hide his disappointment. Thanks to the very careful Covid protocols of the Edinburgh International Festival, the seated, physically-distanced audience for the first of his two performances in the Scottish capital numbered in the hundreds, rather than the thousands.

“It’s a schizophrenic existence”, he commented midway through the Tuesday afternoon show in the EIF’s temporary, pavilion-style Edinburgh Park venue. “A few weeks ago, we were playing in front of 55,000 people with Gorillaz.”

To compound the misery, the audience had been drinking (moderately, it must be said), while he and the band, mindful that they would have to be back on-stage at 8.30pm the same day, had not. To take the edge off his sobriety, Albarn cadged a cigarette from an audience member.

The singer-songwriter was disappointed, too, with the photographic backdrop for the show. He offered the audience a “disclaimer”. He had no idea, he insisted, that the enigmatic black and white photograph of a sea-facing rock in Devon was going to be overlaid with his name and the title of his forthcoming, second solo album, The Nearer The Fountain, More Pure The Stream Flows. He didn’t want the set to look like “an advert” for the Iceland- and Devon-inspired lockdown record, he complained (although, in truth, the picture was simply a perfect replica of the main publicity image for the album). In any case, to Albarn’s obvious satisfaction, the technical staff ensured that the lettering had soon vanished from the photo.

One could attribute the somewhat underwhelming, stilted first half of the show to the atmosphere-suppressing circumstances. Or, one might put it down to Albarn’s late afternoon-abstemiousness.

In reality, however, the new material being showcased played its part in the lack of ambience. Albarn was nominated for the 2014 Mercury Music Prize for his first solo album, Everyday Robots, and his second solo collection will be out in November.

Backed by his five-piece rock band and a classical string quartet, he opened with the already released title track from the new record. The song, which takes its name from the John Clare poem ‘Love and Memory’, is contemplative and touching, or lyrically self-indulgent and musically featureless, according to taste.

Either way, it set the tone for a diverse set, which included such well-known numbers as Out of Time and The Great Fire, that took a considerable time to ignite. It did finally catch light, however.

By the time, late in the show, the band belted out the ska-style Three Changes, from the eponymous 2007 album by “supergroup” The Good, the Bad & the Queen, a few brave souls even got out of their seats to dance. When the gig closed (no encore) with Blur’s timeless This Is a Low (from the famous 1995 album Parklife) the entire, wildly appreciative audience was on its feet.

The EIF continues until Aug 29. Tickets and details: 0131 473 2000; eif.co.uk