Damon Albarn calls Blur’s Coachella set “a slight mismatch”

Damon Albarn has said that Blur’s appearance at Coachella felt “a slight mismatch” and described the festival as “the embodiment of social media now”.

The Britpop group performed on the main stage at the California festival in April 2024, playing a set that spanned their career and included staples such as ‘Song 2’ and ‘Popscene’. During ‘Girls & Boys’, the audience response seemed muted, something that clearly frustrated Albarn.

“You can do it better than that,” he told the crowd while attempting to lead a singalong to the 1994 single, which was met with a subdued reaction. When the response did not improve, he added, “You’re never seeing us again, so you might as well fucking sing it. Know what I’m saying?”

Albarn has now looked back on the moment in a new interview with Rolling Stone, alongside Gorillaz collaborator Jamie Hewlett.

He was asked about Blur’s strong following in Europe compared to Gorillaz enjoying greater success in the United States. Albarn replied: “We did feel at Coachella, when we came over with Blur, that maybe it was a slight mismatch, us being at that festival.”

He went on to say: “It’s kind of the embodiment of social media now, isn’t it?”

Hewlett agreed, adding: “It’s the only festival where the phones aren’t pointed at the stage, but at the person holding the phone.”

Albarn had previously shared his thoughts with KROQ about the Coachella crowd, saying: “I don’t know, it’s a weird one Coachella when it comes to audience you know. It’s hard to know sometimes because they’re quite sort of on their own planet really.”

Blur guitarist Graham Coxon also discussed the show with NME, describing the experience as “weird”.

“It’s just a very restrictive festival,” he explained. “You get stuck in a little compound and it’s impossible to really go out and about and see anything. It’s so hot, and there are those strange five days in between where you don’t really know what to do with yourself. It was me, Rose Elinor Dougall and her mum just wondering around Santa Monica, not knowing what to do with ourselves.”

Before that, Coxon spoke to GQ about the set, saying: “It’s taken you 14 hours to get there, and then you’re playing to people who don’t give a shit. They’re looking at you like ‘who’s this old git?’”

The Rolling Stone interview arrives ahead of the new Gorillaz album ‘The Mountain’, which is due out on March 20.

The project has already been introduced through six songs: ‘The Hardest Thing’, ‘Orange County’, ‘The God Of Lying’ featuring Idles, ‘The Happy Dictator’ with Sparks, ‘The Manifesto’ alongside Trueno and the late D12 member Proof, and ‘Damascus’.

‘Damascus’ features Syrian Bedouin music star Omar Souleyman and rapper and singer Yasiin Bey, formerly known as Mos Def. It was also previewed live at the Together For Palestine benefit concert at Wembley Arena, organised by Brian Eno last year.

Additional contributors to the album include Black Thought, Asha Puthli, Asha Bhosle, Gruff Rhys, Paul Simonon, Johnny Marr, The London Arab Orchestra, Demon Strings, Chris Storr, James Copus and Matthew Gunner.

Last year, Albarn spoke about how the album was partly shaped by personal loss, after both he and Jamie Hewlett lost their fathers and travelled to India while processing their grief.

“I did things I’d never done before. I swam in the Ganges in Varanasi. I watched the bodies being burnt on the banks of the Ganges. I took my dad’s ashes there and I cast them in the river. It was very beautiful.”

In other news, Albarn is set to perform on Saturday Night Live next month with Gorillaz for the first time. The band will appear on March 7, with Ryan Gosling hosting.

Meanwhile, Gorillaz will embark on a UK and Ireland tour in March, which includes a headline show at London’s Tottenham Hotspur Stadium on June 20. Remaining tickets can be found here.