When Blur finally got to play at Wembley Stadium, the pre-eminent venue in Britain, it was very late in their career. It happened just last year, more than three decades after their debut album.
The band had barely spoken to each other for a decade when they reconvened in early 2023 to record the intimate, downbeat album The Ballad of Darren, the least stadium-built album in their long career.
They were older (Damon Albarn and bassist Alex James somewhat shabby in their mid-50s) and drummer Dave Rowntree would wryly observe “all those sneering comments you make in your 20s turn around and bite you in the arse”.
He was referring to the fact they now all had large homes in the country.
The journey through their re-formation, recording The Ballad of Darren, playing a few warm-up gigs and then the triumph at Wembley, is told in this 100-minute documentary by Toby L, who was given considerable access.
It is a courageously candid look at a bunch of middle-aged men carrying a bit of weight, and presumes fans want to see Albarn in shorts feeding his chickens, rock blokes having a chilly ocean swim, a dip in ice baths in their underwear and lounging around in socks, unshaven.
It’s amusingly unglamorous. Not the film that would make a stroppy, ambitious teenage musician – like the young James who became obsessed with the Beatles’ film Help! – announce, “That’s what I want to be.”
But as a portrait of four very different characters whose sole bond at this stage of their lives is the band they grew up in – literally and emotionally – it is quite cheering: old issues are put aside; there’s genuine love, respect and affection for each other and the band’s legacy; Rowntree, guitarist Graham Coxon and the witty James fall in behind Albarn’s intensely personal Darren songs which reduce him to tears at one point.
Albarn reveals he now lives alone and, by counterpoint, flashback footage shows their younger and more cocky selves.
In casual conversation and voice-overs they appreciate the opportunity Blur gave them, they say the reunion seemed right and James observes it gives him a break from family (he has five children), business (cheese-making) and running an annual food and music festival on his farm.
The run-up to Wembley isn’t without stress and tension (concerns are aired about the toll alcohol took on a couple of them during previous tours) but disaster falls at the 11th hour. Rowntree injures his knee. “What was he doing?” laughs James. “He bent over to pick up a tennis ball? He was playing tennis in Surrey, wasn’t he? Rock’n’roll. He just can’t help himself can he? He’s totally rock’n’roll.”
But they make it – Rowntree on crutches to the last minute – and it is a noisy celebration, which puts an edited bookend on the film.
The complete concert is seen in the beautifully shot two-hour Blur, Live at Wembley Stadium, also by Toby L, who previously filmed Liam Gallagher at Knebworth.
From a nervous home town performance at the tiny Colchester Arts Centre to a massive stadium in Barcelona then Wembley, this look behind the curtain is revealing and a natural sequel to the 2009 documentary Blur: No Distance Left to Run.
It shows how middle-aged rock stars with country houses, poultry, children and very un-rock’n’roll interests conduct themselves but can still pull off stadium rock before an audience that includes their nostalgic peers and fans not born when they rode the first wave of Britpop.
Blur again, Oasis gearing up to tour: is modern life rubbish, or just a loop tape?
Blur: To the End and Live at Wembley Stadium screen in the British and Irish Film Festival, October 23-November 13. Also screening is The Stones and Brian Jones, by Nick Broomfield, which includes interviews and archive footage about the founding Stone who died in questionable circumstances in 1969. See britishfilmfestival.co.nz for details of sessions and locations nationally.
