Graham Coxon is "up for" Blur doing an ABBA Voyage-style avatar show on one condition...

19 July 2024, 17:57

Graham Coxon and and the guitarist with Blur — Graham Coxon has shared his thoughts on Blur appearing as holograms one day. Picture: Mairo Cinquetti/SOPA Images/LightRocket via Getty Images, Tim P. Whitby/Getty Images for Altitude

The Blur guitarist spoke to Radio X on the red carpet for the premiere of the Britpop band's To The End documentary.

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Graham Coxon isn't totally against Blur getting avatar treatment one day, but like ABBA Voyage, would prefer it if it captured the band when they were "a little younger".

Blur's To The End documentary is released in UK & Irish cinemas today (19th July) and quizzed on the red carpet what he thought about the prospect of the band as holograms, the guitarist replied: "Well Damon’s sort of tackled that a bit with Gorillax, ain’t he?

"Yeah I’m up for it, I’ll go and see it... If they made us like a little bit younger, yeah. That would be good!"

The Song 2 rocker was also asked if there's any younger bands today who he thinks could go on to have the same longevity as the Britpop band and he said: "Not really. It’s just so unobvious whether a band will [go on for 20+ years]. You know, The Rolling Stones were meant to be only a few months, weren’t they?

"So, it’s not an obvious thing for me when I see a band to say, ‘Oh yeah, they’ll be knocking about in 30 years and do a Wembley.’ You just have no idea.”

Blur – To The End documentary trailer

The Toby L-directed documentary charts the Britpop band's most recent reunion, the making of The Ballad of Darren - their first album in eight years - and the preparation for their two huge sold-out shows at Wembley Stadium.

Asked how it felt to let the fans behind the curtain of the band in the intimate film, guitarist Graham Coxon told Radio X at the premiere: "It’s fine, I’ve never had a problem with that. I think it covers all emotions."

"I think there’s some nice paddies being thrown," he added. "I think there’s some sentimental moments. I think it has something from all the emotional food groups.”

On the most emotional element of watching the documentary, Coxon revealed: “The emotional thing about it is that we are still pretty much the same. Our relationship is pretty much the same."

Despite this, the 55-year-old musician believes the main difference is that it feels different performing as they get older because they are more thankful and less worried about being relevant.

"It doesn’t feel like you do in your 20s where it’s a life and death kind of thing," he mused. "You know when you’re trying to forge yourself a kind of career, so it’s nice to do things when it feels like it’s a legitimate time to do it and that people will still kind of see it. You know."

On playing Wembley Stadium itself, he added: “I think it was such a massive deal that it was really really hard to comprehend beforehand. And actually, beforehand […] we were in the footballers dressing rooms.

"We were underneath in these concrete corridors, so when you actually went on stage and saw it, that was like for the first time seeing it really, so it was pretty overwhelming. It was nuts.”

Blur: To The End is released in cinemas across the UK and Ireland from Friday 19th July.

A separate film, Live At Wembley, which showcases Blur's duo of dates at England's football ground, is also due from the same team (directed by Toby L and produced by Josh Connolly) via UK production company Up The Game.