It has been 18 years since blur, one of the most successful British bands of the last two decades, has graced our shores. Together, Damon Albarn, Graham Coxon, Alex James and Dave Rowntree, have won a total of five BRIT Awards, and were twice nominated for the Mercury Music Award. And now blur are back with their eighth studio album ‘The Magic Whip’ and in July will the band make their way to Australia, fresh from headlining British Summer Time Festival in London’s Hyde Park, to play three huge arena shows in Sydney, Melbourne and Perth.
Joining the blur on the bill will be very special guest Jamie T, one of the most distinctive voices to come out of the UK in the past decade. Announcing their arrival with debut album ‘Leisure’ in 1991 and follow up release ‘Modern Life Is Rubbish’ (1993), blur revolutionised the sound of English popular music. Five successive UK #1 albums followed – with Parklife (1994) and The Great Escape (1995) helping to propel the band to mass popularity around the world with tracks like ‘Parklife’, ‘Girls & Boys’, ‘Country House’ and of course hit single Song 2’.
It’s been 16 years since blur’s last album as a four piece and 27th April sees the release of the band’s critically acclaimed eighth studio album ‘The Magic Whip’. The recordings, which began during a five-day break in touring in Spring 2013 – at Avon Studios in Kowloon, Hong Kong – were put aside when the group finished touring and returned to their respective lives. Last November Graham Coxon revisited the tracks and, drafting in blur’s early producer Stephen Street, he worked with the band on the material. Albarn then added lyrics and the 12 tracks of The Magic Whip are the result.
In 2013 Blur toured across Europe and South America – also taking in a headline set at Coachella that resulted in rapturous reviews – proving to Blur fans around the world that the English lads still have what it takes to put on an explosive live performance.
“Blur left festivalgoers with arguably the night’s most poignant moment” – LA Times
“The night’s best performance” – Rolling Stone
“Triumphant” – NME
One of the most distinctive voices to come out of the UK in the past decade, Jamie T, will be joining Blur to open the arena shows. His infectiously catchy hit ‘Zombie’ came in at number 43 in triple J’s Hottest 100, he picked up three NME Awards and announced a new EP ‘Magnolia Melancholia’.
Its been almost five years since the spiky, globally-informed, occasionally grisly and proudly Clash-influenced “Kings And Queens” album reached No.2 in the UK charts, inspiring the critics to anoint the then-24-year-old Jamie ‘a rare, cocksure talent’ (BBC) and ‘a national institution’ (NME), and almost four since he last graced a concert stage. Spending his hiatus from the scene refining his songwriting, we welcome Jamie T back to the stage with open arms!
“By the time Mr T is manically grinning through Sticks and Stones and young men are forgetting themselves enough to clamber up on the stage to hug and kiss him, this feels like the triumphant return of a modern original.” The Guardian
“More sticky bodies swirl in the pit and more crowdsurfers leap onstage and convivially manhandle Jamie as he surveys the messy scene and smiles again, well and truly back in the game.” Vice
blur 2015 Australian Tour
25 July 2015 – Qantas Credit Union Arena, Sydney
26 July 2015 – Splendour In the Grass, Byron Bay
28 July 2015 – Rod Laver Arena, Melbourne
30 July 2015 – Perth Arena, Perth
www.blur.co.uk
