SHOW: Palais Royale, Toronto, Canada April 6, 1999

Here's a show from 1999 promoting the 13 album. Blur only played three American shows that year, and while I've spent the better part of the last 13 years trying to track down the first two shows (New York and Los Angeles...I know people who have the tapes but the email addresses are dead), this final one from Toronto is, to date, the only one that has surfaced.  I hope you enjoy it!

https://rapidshare.com/files/1426329809/Blur_-_Palais_Royale__Toronto_4-6-99.zip

Enjoy this slice of live Blur!

Book Pre-Order: Gauging Interest

Who would be interested in pre-ordering the book if I set the release for sometime in November/December of this year? Perhaps with a bonus inventive included? (I'm mulling this last bit over...).

Let me know here in the comments, on the Facebook page, or on Twitter what your thoughts are.

All We Want

Leave it to NME to lead with a totally inaccurate teaser ("We have BIG news about the new upcoming Blur album!" they posted on Facebook and Twitter) before pulling their classic bait and switch.

The real headline: "Damon halted new Blur recording sessions." William Orbit claims Damon stopped the sessions and was "kinda a shit to the rest of Blur." It all sounds like sour grapes and I don't want to get too much into it...none of us know what really happened so it's pointless to conjecture. You can read it for yourself here:

http://www.nme.com/news/blur/63943

However, Damon *did* say they'd play "one or two" new songs, so perhaps this new music will eventually see he light of day...we can only hope so!

100K

The website hit 100,000 visitors sometime between when I last checked the counter (on Thursday) and just now. 

THANK YOU to all who have visited and continue to visit, and I hope to have thousands more as I will try to pick up the pace adding news, information, music, and more to this site to make it the best Blur fan site I can possibly make it! Not to mentions as book #2 gets closer, I'll keep everyone updated. 

So again, MANY THANKS!

More Blur News...Olympic Warm-Up Gigs

While the official Blur channels have promised an announcement tonight at midnight, it leaked late last week that Blur will playing 4 UK warm-up gigs in advance of their two European festival dates and massive Olympics Closing Concert in Hyde Park, London, in August. The new dates are:

1 Aug - Winter Gardens, Margate
5 Aug - Civic Hall, Wolverhampton
6 Aug - Civic Hall, Wolverhampton
7 Aug - Pavilions, Plymouth

 While this is certainly excellent news, I can't help but be a bit bummed, personally, that the US Tour Damon seemed so adamant about earlier in the year is still, for all intents and purposes, looking dead. But I can't be too choosey...it's better just to have them back together being (somewhat) active again.


In related news, Damon mentioned, in an interview on Andrew Marr's show the other night, that Blur will be doing "further recording" and also may play more than one new song at this summer's shows. Enticing news, indeed, although with all of the different proclamations of "this is the end/this isn't the end, no more new music/new music," etc, I don't know what to believe any more!  I'm hopeful for the latter in both cases, but for now I'll remain cautiously optimistic so as to not be let down.


Still, Blur activity this summer, including the forthcoming box set, is always a good thing! It's like a (much) scaled-back version of those years in the 1990s when I hinged on every scrap of news I could find, only easier with the internet, Facebook, Twitter, etc!

SNEAK PEAK: Under the Westway

From TV earlier this week, here's Damon playing about half of the forthcoming Blur song "Under the Westway" on piano. It's quite beautiful, and I cannot wait to hear it with the full Blur treatment.

Have a listen and let me know what you think!