Damon and his Britpop boys are back, baby!
Britpop kings Blur caused a stir a week or so ago when they announced a major reunion show for Wembley Stadium. Naturally, we hoped an Irish date would soon follow.
And now, a little ray of sunshine of a deeply grim Monday morning – those two separate
weather warnings aren't
messing around – arrives in the form of a confirmed Blur gig in the Emerald Isle.
Damon Albarn and his often satirical merry men will pitch up at Dublin's Malahide Castle on Saturday, 24 June of 2023.
It marks Blur's first headline show in Ireland since 2015 when they headlined Electric Picnic in Stradbally. Previously, they headlined the Royal Hospital Kilmainham in Dublin in 2013. And prior to that, it was an Oxegen appearance in 2009.
Blur gigs in Ireland don't come around every day of the week, is what we're getting at here. So, if you're in the mood, tickets priced from €79.65 for the Malahide Castle show go on sale this Friday, 25 November at 9am via Ticketmaster and usual outlets nationwide.
https://twitter.com/mcd_productions/status/1594619114898735105
Does this seemingly out-of-nowhere reunion mean we're getting a new
Blur album, though? The boys are proving cagey enough on that score.
Speaking on
BBC 6Music recently, Blur bassist Alex James told Steve Lamacq that the band adopt something of a ramshackle approach to such matters.
“I literally never know what’s going to happen next with Damon,” James said. “It might be the last show, it might [lead to] a new album. It’s part of the fun of it, I literally never know what’s going to happen.”
“It’s part of the terror of being in Blur,” added drummer Dave Rowntree, was was a UK Labour party councillor from 2017 until 2021 – good one for a pub quiz question, that.
On what to expect from the big Wembley gig – and now, presumably, the Dublin show – Rowntree explained:
“We’ve been trying to get something happening for some time, but we were thwarted by Covid as much as anything else, the hangover from Covid, because all the venues have been booked up for God knows how long.
"We’re talking about going back to our roots really,” Rowntree said. "Obviously, we’ll have dancers and fireworks,” he added. "But apart from that, it’s back to our roots."
