blur presents The Ballad of Darren live at @EventimApollo London on 25th July. The only full album live performance. Plus global livestream.

Pre-order the album via the blur official shop for access to the ticket sale on 18th July. Livestream on sale now.https://t.co/wBEARrfq3g pic.twitter.com/kaCVrRaXK7

— blur (@blurofficial) July 11, 2023

The unique show will see the English Britpop icons perform the highly-anticipated The Ballad Of Darren, in its entirety, for the first and only time. The event will also be live-streamed via specialists Driift, allowing fans worldwide the chance to witness and experience the new album live along with those who can make it to the live event in London.

Listen to “The Narcissist” below:

Additionally, the livestream will rebroadcasted three times, allowing fans of differing timezones the opportunity to witness Blur in their live glory, and the show will also be available on demand for a further two days.

The timings for the broadcasts are as follows:

Live: Tuesday, July 25th 9.00pm BST
Rebroadcast #1: Tuesday, July 25th 8.00pm EDT
Rebroadcast #2: Tuesday, July 25th 8.00pm PDT
Rebroadcast #3: Wednesday, July 26th 8.00pm AEST
On Demand: Wednesday, July 26th at 1.00pm BST – Friday, July  28th at 1.00pm BST

Blur will go into the live album performance on the back of a truly wondrous weekend that saw them perform two consecutive dates in front of a combined 150,000 fans at Wembley. The weekend at Wembley, combined with a preceding run of English and European dates along with the announcing of a brand new album with a live performance of it in its entirety to boot, has well and truly seen Blur come storming back into the limelight of the UK music scene and their productivity since their reunion back in November has, no doubt, left fans of the Britpop legends in dumbstruck awe.

Watch the music video for “Song 2” below:

Formed in 1988, Blur have released eight studio albums in total, with The Ballad Of Darren set to be their ninth. Six of these albums have reached number 1 on the UK Albums Chart, cementing Blur’s status as a pioneering band of the Britpop sound and as one of the UK’s most successful and formidable groups of the last 30 years.

Tickets for the live show are will be available from 10am on Tuesday 18th July to those who pre-order the album.

You can pre-order The Ballad Of Darren here.

Tickets for the live show will be available here.

Tickets for the livestream are available to purchase here.

Image: Raymond Flotat

The Ballad Of Darren, out 21st July 2023.

1. The Ballad
2. St Charles Square
3. Barbaric
4. Russian Strings
5. The Everglades (For Leonard)
6. The Narcissist
7. Goodbye Albert
8. Far Away Island
9. Avalon
10. The Heights

Pre-order now: https://t.co/NYFL2LWFDV pic.twitter.com/qYbul5MHgS

— blur (@blurofficial) May 18, 2023

The news comes with the releasing of a single from the upcoming album, “The Narcissist“, an uplifting, alternative rock track that is lyrically both bittersweet and retrospective.

Listen to “The Narcissist” below:

The album announcement follows the recent news that the Britpop heavyweights will play a series of small UK warm-up shows this month, starting tonight in Colchester, that will precede a run of European dates and, on July 8th and 9th, a couple of huge Wembley shows.

Fans of the 90s icons will undoubtedly be astonished by the arrival of a new album that will immediately follow a reunion tour, perhaps even more so than the announcement of the reunion itself back in November last year.

The Ballad Of Darren is set to be Blur’s ninth studio album and their first in eight years, following the release of The Magic Whip in 2015. The LP was recorded at Studio 13 in London and was produced by Frontman Damon Albarn’s long-term collaborating partner James Ellis Ford.

Albarn, on the retrospective nature of the record, told NME that the album has “reflection and comment[s] on where we find ourselves now“, and has described the release as an “aftershock record“. Guitarist Graham Cox added, “The older and madder we get, it becomes more essential that what we play is loaded with the right emotion and intention. Sometimes just a riff doesn’t do the job“.

Blur were formed in London in 1988, with Damon Albarn on lead vocals, Graham Cox on guitar, Alex James on bass and Dave Rowntree on drums, and the ever-present quartet will be the same come July. The group released their debut album, the shoegaze heavy Leisure, in 1991, and transitioned to a more guitar pop orientated style with their next three releases, Modern Life Is Rubbish (1993), Parklife (1994), and The Great Escape (1995), helping kickstart the Britpop movement and creating a rivalry with Oasis in the process.

Watch the music video for “Parklife” below:

The ever-evolving group then transitioned to lo-fi indie rock with their self-titled album of 1997 before moving into a more experimental, alternative rock phase with 13 (1999) and Think Tank (2003).

Watch the music video for “Song 2″ below:

You can pre-order The Ballad Of Darren now here.

See below for tour dates:

19/05/2023 – Colchester Arts Centre – Colchester
21/05 – Eastbourne Winter Gardens – Eastbourne
26/05 – The Halls – Wolverhampton
28/05 – O2 City Hall – Newcastle
01/06 – Primavera Sound – Barcelona
08/06 – Primavera Sound – Barcelona
10/06 – Primavera Porto – Porto
24/06 – Malahide Castle – Dublin
27/06 – Ziggo Dome – Amsterdam
30/06 – Roskilde Festival – Roskilde
06/07 – Beauregard Festival – Normandy
08/07 – Wembley – London
09/07 – Wembley – London

Purchase tickets here.