Blur Reform For london Hyde Park Gig
It will be the first time the band have performed together since 2000
Blur are reforming to play a huge live show in London's Hyde Park next summer - nine years after their last concert as a four-piece band.
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Blur Tickets - Hyde Park 03 July 2009 Onm Sale Friday 12 Dec
Damon Albarn, Graham Coxon, Alex James and Dave Rowntree will reunite for the concert on 3 July. - It will be the first time the band have played in public since performing at London's Royal Festival Hall in 2000, before Coxon left the group in 2002.
"It just felt it was right again," Albarn told music weekly NME. "It somehow feels like there's something for us to do again, we're not completely useless or pointless, we've got a reason to exist." Coxon told the magazine the band were "making public what's been going on a little bit privately".
The announcement has fuelled speculation that the band will also play at next year's Glastonbury Festival, which falls a week before the Hyde Park gig.
Blur enjoyed 19 top 20 hit singles in the UK over 12 years
Last month, Albarn told BBC Radio 1's Newsbeat it was "very possible" he would go back to Blur. The singer confirmed the band members had been meeting up and bassist James had also hinted at a reunion.
Formed in 1989, Blur have recorded seven studio albums and had a string of UK top 10 singles, including number one hits with Country House and Beetlebum. Their last album, Think Tank, was released in 2003. Since then, Albarn, 40, has been best known for his Gorillaz pop project with cartoonist Jamie Hewlett. More recently, the pair have collaborated on Monkey: Journey to the West, a Chinese opera that is running at London's O2 until January and will then tour the world. Guitarist Coxon, 39, developed his solo career while James, 40, became a writer and now makes cheese on a farm in Oxfordshire. Drummer Dave Rowntree, 44, was recently selected by the Labour Party to be its candidate for the Cities of London and Westminster at the next general election
Blur are an English alternative rock band that formed in London in 1989. The four members of the band are: Damon Albarn (vocals), Graham Coxon (guitar), Alex James (bass guitar) and Dave Rowntree (drums). Blur's debut album Leisure (1991) incorporated the sounds of Madchester and shoegazing. Following a stylistic change in 1992—influenced by English guitar groups such as The Kinks, The Beatles and XTC—Blur released Modern Life Is Rubbish (1993), Parklife (1994) and The Great Escape (1995). As a result, the band helped to popularise the Britpop genre and achieved mass popularity in the UK, aided by a famous chart battle with rival band Oasis dubbed "The Battle of Britpop".
By the late 1990s, with the release of Blur (1997), the band underwent another reinvention, influenced by the lo-fi style of American indie rock bands such as Pavement; in the process, Blur finally gained mainstream success in the US with the single, "Song 2". The last album featuring the band's original lineup, 13 (1999) found Blur experimenting with electronic music and gospel music, as Albarn wrote more personal lyrics. In May 2002, Coxon left Blur during the recording of their seventh album Think Tank (2003). Containing electronic sounds and simpler guitar playing, the album was marked by Albarn's growing interest in hip hop and African music. Since their 2003 tour, Blur have done no studio work or touring as a band, and members have engaged in other projects.