Blur: Damon Albarn reveals weekend two performance at Coachella 2024 is “probably our last”

When Damon Albarn at weekend one of the Coachella Festival 2024 stated that it’ll be the last time people will see them (to paraphrase), it looks like in hindsight he wasn’t merely antagonising the crowd.

During their performance earlier this morning, Blur  - Damon Albarn, Graham Coxon, Alex James and Dave Rowntree - revealed that they had no plans to play live again after their festival appearance. 

Shortly before performing the Justine Frischmann-inspired song “Tender,” from the group’s album “13,” Albarn spoke to the crowd and announced: “In the spirit of clarity and truth, this is probably our last gig”.

Coachella Festival 2024 isn’t the first time that Albarn has suggested that Blur were to call it a day once again sooner rather than later. In an interview with the NME in December 2023, the Gorillaz musician admitted that life in Blur was “too much for me.”

“It is time to wrap up this campaign,” he said. “It’s too much for me. It was the right thing to do and an immense honour to play these songs again, spend time with these guys, make an album, blah-blah-blah.”

“I’m not saying I won’t do it again, it was a beautiful success, but I’m not dwelling on the past.”

It would mark the second “indefinite hiatus” the band have undertaken during their careers, after the six years between the group’s 2003 album, “Think Tank,” and the grand return to the music scene with a celebrated performance at London’s Hyde Park in 2006. 

That eventually led to the band recording their first album in 12 years, “The Magic Whip,” which peaked at the top of the UK album chart upon release in 2015 and has gone on to go Gold in the United Kingdom.