Hard to believe as it may be, Blur have become the Rolling Stones of the Noughties generation. Damon Albarn may look more like a fitness instructor than a rock behemoth, and the guitarist Graham Coxon may lack Keith Richards’s decadent glamour, but there are precious few other British bands of (relatively) recent times that can fill the better part of Hyde Park — and get the entire place singing along. Having disappeared if not exactly split up for a decade, Blur have returned to prove that they possess the one thing any great act needs above all else: fantastic songs.

As the swelter of the hottest day of the year so far melted into the early evening, Blur took to the stage and launched into She’s So High, an indie disco anthem that had the entire place punching the air as if they got confused and thought they had gone to see a Metallica concert. Albarn, the essence of the British bloke in a black Fred Perry top and jeans, jogged on the spot while Coxon leant his heavily distorted guitar into a stack of amplifiers, jaggedly rocking out in that way British people do when they want to lose control but can’t quite do it.

The soon-to-be Labour Party candidate Dave Rowntree pounded the drums with all the fury of a man who had just discovered that all around him have been fiddling their expenses. The bassist Alex James, slim, dressed in black and with the same foppish haircut that always looked so insouciant back in the Britpop days, appeared to be taking in his stride his departure from his cheese farm and his return to playing in front of thousands.

It was the rendition of Girls And Boys that made you aware of Blur’s real achievement. Back in the 1990s, the band was as much defined by Albarn’s unstoppable ambition, a silly but captivating war with their rivals Oasis, and an ability to take indie music into the mainstream as they were by their songs.

Now, all but the songs have passed away, and Girls And Boys is a masterpiece. Simultaneously euphoric and tragic, it captures the British spirit in the way that, say, The Kinks’s Sunny Afternoon does: its depth comes from an understanding of the sadness at the heart of a good time.

The evening sun gave way to the moon, a rising wind took the place of the heat, and Albarn’s between-song banter was reliably terrible. “Lakes. Speakers’ Corner. Other stuff.” he muttered in an attempt to describe Hyde Park, before sensibly giving up and launching into There’s No Other Way.

A spirited version of Beetlebum suffered from a heavily distorted guitar wiping out whatever sounds the backing singers were making, but a beautiful rendition of Tender, the song for which Albarn lost his detached, can’t-get-me persona for a heartfelt message of love, had everyone joining in.

More instantly recognisable songs made you realise that Blur wrote more timeless classics than any other band of their time. Parklife remains an irresistibly lairy terrace anthem, and Country House achieves the feat of being incredibly silly and nevertheless capturing some sort of truth.

The years away have improved Blur. Gone are the associations with new Labour, Britpop and spats with Oasis; remaining are a handful of great songs, performed by a band at peace with itself.

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