BRITISH indie band Blur will perform at this summer's Benicàssim music festival – their only date in Spain – and will be promoting their new album, the first to be released since 2003.
The Britpop outfit led by singer Damon Albarn (pictured) – together with Graham Coxon, Alex James and Dave Rowntree – have just released The magic whip and will combine tracks from this and from their popular previous albums during the festival on the Castellón province coast between July 16 and 19.
Blur, whose heyday was in the early to mid 1990s – provoking a friendly 'north-south' divide and 'musical war' between their own fans and those of fellow indie-rockers Oasis – became the joint kings of grunge and alternative pop alongside the group led by the Gallagher brothers with hits such as Girls and boys, Parklife, Song 2, Modern life is rubbish, and Leisure.
Five Brit Awards later, Blur downed tools in 2003, the year of its last appearance at Benicàssim International Festival (FIB), having performed there twice previously in 1997 and 1999.
During Blur's self-imposed 12-year exile from the music scene, Damon Albarn launched his 'virtual' band Gorillaz, with whom he was on stage at Benicàssim, but he did not perform there last year after releasing his solo album Everyday robots.
Thanks to the FIB being under new management at the hands of Brit Melvin Benn, a hugely-famous festival promoter behind such massive UK dates as T in the Park, Lovebox, Creamfields, the Isle of Wight Festival and Glastonbury, the line-up for this year's four-day musical mudbath camp at Benicàssim includes a string of artists and groups from the land of Harry Potter and PG Tips.
Read more at thinkSPAIN.com