IT takes drummer Dave Rowntree to say what his Blur bandmates are thinking.
“It’s a bit overwhelming — having all that emotion,” he says.
Somewhere in deepest Devon, not far from the rugged coastline, Rowntree is perched at one end of a cream-coloured sofa in a cavernous barn conversion.
Bassist Alex James adopts a typically laidback pose at the opposite end while, sandwiched between them, guitarist Graham Coxon holds his head in his hands.
Melancholic strains of The Everglades (For Leonard) from Blur’s comeback album, The Ballad Of Darren, are playing in the background.
On the other side of the room, a solitary figure in a flat cap sits with his back against the wall, sobbing uncontrollably.
It is Damon Albarn.
Everything has become too much for the band’s singer and chief songwriter.
Is it because he’s back in the company of his old muckers who helped him give Oasis a run for their money during Britpop’s glory days?
Is it because of a personal break-up, or is it simply a realisation of lost youth, never to be regained?
The answer is probably a bit of everything.
“I’m just getting sentimental in me old age,” Albarn is heard saying.
These scenes come from the fly-on-the-wall documentary Blur: To The End (after their Parklife album song), which charts the band’s reunion capped by two euphoric nights at Wembley Stadium in July last year.
Directed with an assured eye by Toby L, it is a refreshingly candid portrayal of the four protagonists, filled with happy/sad moments and just the right degree of nostalgia.
When Albarn recovers his composure, he alludes to his new-found single status.
He says the latest Blur album, their ninth, is “about the aftershock of loss once something dramatic has happened — whether it’s a break-up or the pandemic”.
“I live alone, essentially, in the countryside. That’s what has happened,” he continues.
“And this record obviously feels very much like that.”
The film’s opening sequences, including the one where Albarn breaks down, take place at the Devon farm he has owned since the Nineties.
It’s the “very big house in the country” he bought back then, even if it was “a bit rough and ready”.
The irony of these surroundings isn’t lost on Rowntree, who remembers taking the p**s back when Blur released their song, Country House.
He says: “I was the very last member to get a very big house in the country. But we’ve all done it and it’s funny how these sneering comments you make in your twenties turn around and bite you in the ass.”
The film begins with Albarn driving to his house down narrow lanes — and nearly crashing when someone comes too fast the other way.
Soon, we’re introduced to his chickens and we hear about his “rambunctious” cockerel called Tony.
“Well, I’ve been coming here since 1996/97,” he says.
“I don’t mind not being around people.
“My brain’s not racing so fast. I’m able to relax.
“I suppose that’s why I realised I could actually live here now.”
For Albarn, the Blur reunion represents a single but significant step in a feverish, multi-faceted career.
His numerous other projects include Gorillaz, The Good, the Bad & the Queen, solo albums, stage musicals and operas as well as that enthralling collision of cultures, Africa Express.
But, at some point, he was always going to return to the group of people who joined him at the start of his epic journey.
“We just carry a lot of experience collectively,” he affirms.
“That’s why I wanted to do it again. For some reason, it felt wanted.
“At this moment in time, I’m 55 and I have to accept that time is not infinite.”
The passage of time looms large on The Ballad Of Darren, an album which summons the special chemistry Blur have always had, but also reflects the older and wiser status of its members.
“I don’t think any of us thought we’d make another record, especially not a record like this,” says Albarn.
“I suppose that’s why I wanted to try to make it as good as possible. Otherwise, it’s just a bunch of old c*s trying to relive their past.”
For James, being back with his bandmates means a lot.
“We’ve barely communicated for the last ten years,” he says.
“But as soon as the four of us get in a room together, it’s just the same as it was when we were all 19. Four sweaty blokes annoying each other.”
The band is like a marriage… it’s bloody hard. Are you willing to subdue your ego for the sake of the
Dave Rowntree
whole?
When Blur split in 2003, a lot of people, including the band members themselves, wondered if they would ever get back together.
But live shows in 2009, 2012 and 2015 kept their great songs like Parklife, Beetlebum, The Universal, Girls & Boys, Song 2, There’s No Other Way and Tender in the public eye.
While Albarn dived into his myriad other projects and Coxon embarked on a solo career, Rowntree branched out into law and politics.
And James says: “When everybody went their separate ways, I got married and made some cheese.”
I have always communicated musically with Damon. That developed into friendship – and I haven’t got many friends!
Graham Coxon
The latest reunion gives Coxon a chance to rekindle the spark between himself and Albarn.
The guitarist says: “Damon and I communicate musically a lot. We always have.
“That developed into friendship — and I haven’t got many friends. So every now and then, we have to check up with each other to see if something is brewing.”
Rowntree explains what it means to be in a band like Blur: “It’s like a marriage. It’s just bloody hard.
“You ask yourself, ‘What are you willing to sacrifice to be in the band? Are you willing to subdue your ego for the sake of the whole?’.”
James gives this insight: “You never know how any of them are feeling. We’re not good at communicating.
“I mean, there’s a point in Devon when I thought Damon was laughing, singing along to the songs — he was crying. I completely misread it.”
And Albarn says: “Ours is a brotherhood that has been sustained by our musical relationship.
“It’s been a long time, so it is a very precious one. We’re happy to see each other and get on that stage together and then we’re happy to go our separate ways.”
If you’re thinking that the tone of the To The End documentary is quite serious, you’ll be glad to know there’s also plenty of goofing around and funny anecdotes.
One song “brewing” was The Ballad Of Darren’s most all-out rocker, St. Charles Square, featuring ace lead guitar from Coxon.
It includes the line, “It’s up and down the clock of the town hall back in time”, which brings this explanation from Albarn.
“That is about when I went round to Alex’s flat in New Cross and took acid,” he says.
He explains how he made a life- endangering leap in order to climb up the nearby town hall tower and change the time on the clock face.
But, as you might expect, all roads lead to Wembley in this film.
As Blur return to touring with warm-up gigs and festival dates, we hear James discussing the booze- fuelled perils of life on the road — past and present.
Then we learn of Rowntree’s severe knee injury, sustained playing tennis, which put him on crutches just before the Wembley shows.
But, as anyone who was present will testify, the two nights, Saturday the 8th and Sunday the 9th of July, 2023, at England’s home of football were unqualified triumphs.
“For me, it doesn’t get better than that,” says an elated Albarn afterwards.
Coxon decides that the shows “made me feel happy. It made me feel a bit more valued.
Damon sent one of three emails he’s ever written to me! It went, ‘Wembley was the best show I’ve ever done. ’
Alex James
“I know I don’t really care what people think, but when they’re saying they love me or they love Blur, you can’t help but feel good.”
James talks of being at home on the Monday morning after the second gig when an email arrived from Albarn.
“It’s one of three he’s ever written to me! It went, ‘That was the best show I’ve ever done’. There was a kind of unselfconscious glee in the house.”
For the final scenes of To The End, we’re back in Devon with Damon as he drives down the country lanes near his gaff.
He recalls writing The Ballad Of Darren songs by himself, “intuitively feeling that something heavy was about to happen”.
For the first part of the process, he says, “I was completely on my own but, for the second part, I had my brothers back”.
He continues: “We all have hugely involved and complicated lives and we were so lucky to spend this time together, just the four of us. That’s the beauty of it.”
But, typically for this restless soul, he asks himself the question, “Do I want to repeat this next year?
“No,” he replies emphatically.
“Because why would I? I had an amazing year doing Blur. Fantastic. And that’s it, really.”
Yet Albarn stresses that the band’s journey may not be at an end.
“Maybe it will manifest itself again, if it’s wanted,” he says.
The final scene finds him stripping down to his swimming trunks and wading out into the sea near his Devon home.
It’s as if he’s washing away the tears and the joy from one of the most momentous years of his life — all set for his next great adventure.
Blur: To The End is in cinemas from tomorrow.
The album Live At Wembley Stadium is available from July 26 in CD, vinyl and digital formats.
