On November 14, 1991, I attended the Los Angeles date of Blur’s first North American tour—just five stops—supporting their debut album, Leisure. It was at the Roxy Theatre and before the group took the stage, they wandered around the venue, blending in with the hyper crowd who were dressed in the regulation British indie garb of ring Ts topped with asymmetrical haircuts, ready to pogo to “There’s No Other Way” and chant along to “She’s So High.” Guitarist Graham Coxon introduced me to Alex James, Blur’s bass player, who told me, “You have lovely thin arms darling,” a statement I remind him of when he joins me via Zoom to discuss Blur’s latest documentary, To The End, to which, he replies, “How nice to see you and your lovely arms again.”
Alex is grizzled now with a gray beard, brown moustache, big glasses, and floppy hair—still his signature—plus the ever-present cigarette which he waves around for emphasis. These days, he’s a cheese farmer. His specialty is a blue cheese called Blue Monday, likely named after the New Order song. In To the End he says New Order were the reason he picked up the bass. He also hosts the Big Feastival on his farm, which combines musical and culinary talent. When we speak, it looks like he’s in a barn with a pitched, textured roof and either a skylight or a missing panel letting in bright light.
More from Spin:
- The Mae Shi Are Dead. Long Live HLLLYH
- Every Missy Elliott Album, Ranked
- Tom Morello Walks Into a Bar…
To The End is the fourth official Blur documentary. The first is the charming Starshaped (1993) which shows the young group at the start of their career and plays like a home movie. “We didn’t really know what we were going through,” says Alex. “The whole thing was a hoot. Everything you wanted to do when you’re young turned up 100%.” When I mention he was always smiling the decade I spent with Blur in the ’90s, he comments, “It’s easier for the bass player. Singers and guitar players, they have to feel they’ve suffered or they don’t feel like they’ve turned up to work.”
No Distance Left to Run (2010), more conventional but in-depth, came during the first reunion. The second reunion was recorded in New World Towers (2015), which captured the making of The Magic Whip and some key performances. To The End, released in summer 2024 in the U.K. and hitting select North American theaters and on-demand June 27, focuses on the band’s most recent reunion. It goes behind the scenes of their last album, The Ballad of Darren, and their two sold-out shows at Wembley Stadium on July 8 and 9, 2023. A separate concert film, Blur: Live at Wembley Stadium, documents those performances. Both were directed by Toby L. (Liam Gallagher: Knebworth 22, Olivia Rodrigo: SOUR Prom).
“I was very excited about the subtext,” says Toby, speaking from a pub in London’s Soho area. “The band hadn’t played in a room together for the best part of 10 years. They hadn’t made new music together for the best part of 10 years. The thing that stood out to me was the fact they were all in a different part of their lives having reached a certain age. As a fan, first and foremost, I was curious about their emotional and mental headspaces. I was very intrigued by how they felt about being in a band since they were teenagers to beyond grown adults. It was about being in the here and now and telling a philosophical friendship story about growing older and taking on new challenges as old friends.”
Blur’s private dynamics have long been the subject of speculation. To The End offers rare access. It begins in the English countryside, shot with rich cinematography. Damon Albarn is shown driving through narrow lanes to his “very big house in the country.” The place is overgrown but beautiful. He collects fresh eggs from his chickens and introduces his rooster, Tony.
Alex soon arrives, and the two plunge into the sea. Graham follows, limping up the stairs—he and Damon both have knee issues. Drummer Dave Rowntree is last to arrive and quickly starts dropping razor-sharp one-liners: “Sneering comments you make in your 20s come to bite you in the ass,” and “The less we do, the bigger we get.”
“It all happened quite suddenly,” Alex says of the reunion. “Phone call out of the blue: Do we want to get back together to do Wembley? It was an obvious yes to me, but we had to go to a meeting about it at Damon’s studio. We hadn’t had much contact with each other at all so it was a little bit awkward. But the gear was all set up and we started playing ‘She’s So High,’ which we wrote in our first rehearsal, so we played the first song we ever did, and in 10 minutes, we’re all hugging each other going, ‘Yeah! Let’s do this!’”
Recording a new album added, as Alex puts it, “an extra layer of jeopardy to the film, we didn’t need to build because it’s always on a fucking knife edge. But from the minute we got into the studio and started playing again, it was all magic. I remember the first time Blur got back together, Damon was doing some fucking opera, Graham gone down some fucking finger-picking rabbit hole, God knows what Dave’s doing. I’m juggling cheese and children. But there’s this strange gravity that brings the band back together.”
Halfway through the film, the candid confessionals kick in from the individual members. Some of them on camera, most of them not. The footage is a combination of present time and never-seen-before classic moments on and off-stage across the three and a half decades of Blur’s existence, including video from their shows at Wembley Arena. Their honesty is raw and uncensored.
“I’ll talk to anyone,” says Alex. “But the real challenge is getting Damon and Graham to open up. It was good they had a relationship with Toby.”
As the boss of Transgressive Records, Toby has history with Graham, having released his solo album, The Spinning Top (2009) and two from The Waeve, Graham’s project with his partner, Rose Elinor Dougall. He also has history with Damon, releasing his second solo album in 2021, and Africa Express’ Maison Des Jeunes (2013) which was spearheaded by Damon.
“When you’ve got relationships with people, there’s a temptation to keep things at a certain level of civility or safety,” says Toby. “I felt it was important for not just the integrity of the film, but also for the integrity of the audience, to make sure that the access was justified. I wasn’t afraid to ask difficult questions at any point. All of the band at differing points have moments of tension or annoyance or upset in the film, either with each other or personal circumstances. I had said in the first meeting, there’s no point doing this unless it’s real, because there are too many documentaries made these days that are absolutely artificial and bullshit. Thankfully, Blur weren’t interested in that. For me, it was critical to lean on existing relationships, not to exploit but to open up and make sure that we weren’t shying away from the human condition that comes with being in a band at this level.”
Alex agrees, “This is the longest we’ve ever gone without doing anything,” he says. “It gave me a new perspective on everybody. There’s been points when we’ve all driven each other completely mad, all jockeying for position. I’ve never had more respect for Damon and for Graham and for Dave. It’s wonderful to rebuild those bridges.
“But Damon does make everyone else in the world look fucking lazy,” he adds. “I work bloody hard, Damon just fucking puts the work in. It’s incredible. We literally played every fucking song we’ve ever written in every key. So demanding, but it’s all in the name of making it as good as it could fucking possibly be. You need somebody doing that. I’m glad that’s not me. But you only need one of those people in a band. That’s why bands work. You need the grand one.”
The band’s personalities are unfiltered in To The End, as is their affection for each other. Damon breaks down crying during album playback, then later curls up between Alex and Graham on the couch. They each drape an arm over him. “It was a gooey moment,” says Toby. “We flashback to it during the climax of the Wembley film, and it’s a bit on the nose, but that moment gets to people because at the core of it, there’s this familial brotherhood and it transcends words.”
Even Graham, who deflects with humor the seriousness of a situation, or when attention is focused on him, or just plain nervousness, comes through with honesty. During one of To the End’s more memorable moments during rehearsals Graham says, “Where are we? We are in this big fucking shithole. Concrete floor, polished, so everything sounds insane and bad. It’s a great way to make you feel awful about everything you’re doing. Then they’ve got all these silly lights. I look down at my fretboard and I’m blinded by these stupid lights. It’s as far away as creating music together as you can possibly get when you start incorporating all this shit.”
The concert footage, though, is stunning. Toby and his team capture not just incredible angles but also the band’s expressions and intensity during a powerful Wembley set. Dave calls it “playing in London’s living room,” not the nostalgia act Damon had feared: “Bunch of old cunts trying to relive their past.”
“Walking on stage at Wembley made me cry again,” Alex says of the film which he watched not long ago with his children. “It brought it all back, how emotional it was. We were ready and fucking London was ready as well and it was a perfect summer night. In the live Wembley film, the second night, I’d really pushed hard for “Out of Time” to be included in the set. It starts off so quietly that I have to really listen. I had my eyes shut, and it was so quiet, you could hear a pin drop. I didn’t open my eyes ’til the chorus, thinking, ‘Fuck, they’re not into it because it’s so quiet,’ but everyone had their phones on. It was a sea of a million lights. That was the first time I cried. It still makes me well up.”
Blur: To The End opens in theaters and everywhere movies are rented Friday, June 27.
Blur: Live At Wembley Stadium is available everywhere movies are rented Friday, July 4.
DVDs for both will be available in July.
To see our running list of the top 100 greatest rock stars of all time, click here.
