Blur Invited the “Parklife Girl” to Coachella

At Wednesday night’s Coachella warm-up at the Fox Theatre in Pomona, CA, Damon Albarn of Britpop darlings Blur teased their hit “Parklife,” and said he “wouldn’t play it at Coachella” because it would be lost on the (rich, unconcerned) festival attendees. The crowd of die-hard fans roared in a mishmash of GenX, British, and proletariat pride.

But he stopped the song when he noticed a young woman in the crowd.

Within seconds, Anaiah Davis was onstage. Why? Nine years earlier, as a 16-year-old at Madison Square Garden, she had sung “Parklife” with Blur. Now a musician and film-school grad, she heard about the Pomona show, grabbed her homemade T-shirt, which is festooned with Albarn and a reference to “white boy #&&#,” and headed to the airport.

This time, she ripped through multiple spoken-word verses (originated in the album by Phil Daniels), and delighted the fans, many of whom see “Parklife” as a rip on classist societies and the leisure class in general. That she is a Black, Gen Z Blur fan is unusual enough on its own, but seeing her work the stage with Albarn and take over duties on the song electrified the Fox.

Outside the show, she revealed what the morning after that MSG Blur show was like: “I woke up, saw I was in Rolling Stone, started crying, fell asleep, woke up, ate a whole pizza, and fell asleep again.”

It wasn’t a dream. Blur invited Parklife Girl to stay a bit longer in California — to be their guest at Coachella.