If you think about it long and hard it’s obvious that Damon Albarn is the most intelligent, imaginative and personable British musicians of the last three decades. He’s equally at home with Chinese opera, dance and one chord punk. Any front man who takes the risk of shortening Song 2, one of the finest pieces of music created since homo sapiens saw off the Neanderthal menace, is confident of his repertoire.

So he should be. Sometimes with music a bit of distance is useful, allowing you to sort out the drunken infatuation from real romance. Thursday evening’s set took in all the highlights and even if the sound system was a bit ropey you’ll not often see a band get such an emotional response from its audience. One of my companions reassured me that it would be a pretty relaxed evening with “an older crowd in their late 20s and mid 30s”. Quite. And so it was.

A quick word about the support act Foals. They seem to have been given access to a cache of songs co-written by the Gang of Four and Joy Division, songs which the writers felt were too dull to be played in public. They should have respected the creators’ wishes.

Albarn was moved by the occasion. He reminded the audience that in 2003 two million people had marched into the same park to stop a war and you felt that it was one of his life’s defining moment. The park seems to be one of his defining places. Park life was inspired by the place and Phil Daniels’ performance was on the money.

Until this evening I would not have thought it possible to get slushy about a band that made its mark through Brit pop. But Blur and Albarn are the epitome of everything that is great and creative about English music. They evolved, they were thoughtful, they wrote great songs and you just know that if they get back together properly they can do it all again.