Damon Albarn wanted to cancel Blur's second night at Wembley Stadium

16 April 2024, 12:32

The Blur frontman revealed that he was "trying to find reasons" to cancel the next date at the venue.

Damon Albarn didn't want to play Blur's second gig at at Wembley last year.

The Britpop icons played a duo of dates at the iconic England football stadium, treating fans to a career-spanning set on 8th and 9th July.

However, in a new interview the rocker has revealed after a successful first night at England's national home ground, he didn't want to step on stage again.

“I never thought I’d love Wembley," he told KROQ at Coachella‘s opening weekend."The first night was great, and then the next night, I didn’t want to do another gig. I was trying to find reasons to cancel it. I was sitting in a hotel at Wembley Parks, like a travel lodge or something, and I was watching these people coming in and I was like, ‘Well I can’t cancel that’.”

The Girls & Boys rocker continued: "And it was actually, maybe the best gig in that time that you could ever, ever dream of having. But it was weird, I was really not into going onstage, and then I was on stage and it was very nice to do that."

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Damon Albarn may have had a great two nights at Wembley, but their gig at Coachella went viral for the wrong reasons, with many slamming the crowds for their lacklustre response.

The night of their set, footage soon went viral of Damon Albarn trying his best to encourage the audience during the band's Girls & Boys single, saying: "You'll never see us again, so you might as well f***ing sing it!".

The clip was shared multiple times on social media, and in this instance was captioned by a fan on Twitter: "WHAT THE F*** IS HAPPENING

"im convinced coachella has the worst vibes and people possible. it’s fucking Blur, show some respect" (sic).

The clip opened up plenty of discourse on line, with some slamming Coachella as a "festival for people who don't like music", while others defended the young crowd for not even being born when Blur's biggest hits were released.

Despite all the noise, Albarn and co took to Twitter after their performance to thank Coachella and shared a few photos from their 13-track set.

See Blur's Coachella week 1 setlist on 13th April 2024:

1. St Charles Square
2. Popscene
3. Trouble in the Message Centre
4. Beetlebum
5. Goodbye Albert
6. Trimm Trabb
7. Out of Time
8. Bird Song ([traditional] cover) (with the Torres Martinez Cahuilla Bird Singers)
9. Death of a Party (with the Torres Martinez Cahuilla Bird Singers)
10. Girls & Boys
11. Song 2
12. The Narcissist
13. Tender (with the Torres Martinez Cahuilla Bird Singers)

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