Oasis or Blur? The only question in the 90s that really mattered and it divided families, housing estates and classrooms throughout the decade. Oasis were either on or off, and then they had a bust up, and got back together. Are they together now? Who knows.
But Blur famously split after extreme personal differences. What once started up as a band of brothers, well best friends, turned out to be an alcohol fuelled frenzy of tours and festivals that eventually led to their demise. Damon Albarn and Graham Coxon were no longer on speaking terms and eventually, Blur were no more. They all went their seperate ways... Damon started numerous bands such as the Gorillaz (who have just released Plastic Beach, their sophomore album) and The Good The Bad and The Queen; Alex James started a family, a cheese farm (and created possibly the best named cheese of all time, Blue Monday) and wrote autobiography A Bit of A Blur (which is now on sale in HMV for a mere £3); Drummer Dave Rowntree went to law school and Graham Coxon focussed on family life.
No Distance Left to Run documents the bands revival in 2009 and follows them on their 'comeback' tour, mainly focussing on their spine tingling Glastonbury performance. It films interviews with other journalists, band practice and individual interviews with the band members, all of which reveal different facets to the Brit Pop innovators. Damon is filmed tearing up on stage at Glasto after the 80,000 crowd sing in unison the emotive lyrics of 'Tender', the lyric that Coxon dreamt up whilst in bed and had to scrawl it down immediately.
The reconciliation occured on a porch of a housing estate between Albran and Coxon and they two put their past behind them and said 'Let's get the band back together one last time'. The live performances over the summer, that consisted of a flavourful setlist of 'Parklife', 'Girls and Boys' and the monsterous 'Song 2', took Blur to new and dizzying heights. Let's hope they came away with the success of this documentary and perhaps start dreaming up some more classics for us to sing back to them.
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Possibly one of the most moving live performances of our time. Or maybe I'm just bias!
Watch the documentary in full on BBC iplayer.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/b00rkm75/Blur_No_Distance_Left_to_Run/
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