How is this for a comeback: years after their 1990s heyday at the top of the charts, Brit-pop wonders Blur (see ‘Song 2,’ ‘There’s No Other Way,’ ‘Parklife’) are blazing trails again.
As the planet counts down to the quartet’s hotly anticipated performance alongside New Order and The Specials closing the London Summer Olympic Games, Blur has just revealed they will perform two new songs on Twitter via live worldwide video stream Monday. Nuts, huh?
According to the New York Daily News, the group will play the songs at 17:15 GMT (or 12:15 pm EST) and broadcast them via its Twitter account @blurofficial.
"Filmed and streamed completely from a secret UK location, the two new songs - which the band has never publicly performed - are 'Under the Westway' and 'The Puritan,’" the paper quotes Blur’s record label EMI as saying.
Wow… talk about social media as a rad tool for mass communication.
The songs, which the NYDN notes were written for the above-mentioned August 12 post-Olympics concert at London's Hyde Park, will be available for download after the live performance. They will be released on a seven-inch single later.
And if you want to get a sense of just how exciting this band can be playing home turf, check out the video from 2009, below.
Setting aside the fact that singer Damon Albarn’s performance style can best be described as, ‘Appears to want to pick a fight with his audience,’ the excitement when the band busts into the song’s swooshing signature guitar riff is palpable.
Blur as a band had gone quiet after the departure of guitarist Graham Coxon during the recording of its last studio album, 2003's Think Tank, but re-grouped in 2009 for a series of concerts and has been dropping hints of a new album.
Count us in! And while we're at it, special to Albarn: more Gorillaz please!
