Blur are the most interesting musical phenomena of the past 25 years. The Britons have accentuated this themselves with "21" (2012), a beautiful cube that contains the band's more or less entire output. It is really remarkable how the London four-piece manage to touch their listeners with both loud ("Song 2") and soft ("Tender") songs and how pleasant it is to mix pure pop ("Coffee & TV") with experiment ("Beetlebum"). You will find it all in there and all of it is equally great. Blur are now operating on a sporadic basis, as this is what suits the individual members best. Drummer Dave Rowntree has been a lawyer for a while now, guitarist Graham Coxon is working under his own name, bassist Alex James is making cheese and writing and front-man Damon Albarn is the most fascinating musical human being of his generation (Gorillaz, The Good, The Bad & The Queen, Africa Express and Dr Dee). Blur have adapted to this new reality and it works out just fine. A striking feat: their music is now more solid than ever. In 2012, Blur wrote 2 new songs ("The Puritan" and "Under The Westway") ahead of their massive sold out show in London's Hyde Park which were debuted on Twitter via a live video stream from a London rooftop. They are a band of/for our time.
Rock Werchter 2013 will be held from Thursday 4 July to Sunday 7 July in Werchter (Belgium). For four whole days the very best can be seen and heard on three stages in the Festivalpark. Established artists, today's and yesterday's heroes and the big sensations take to the Main Stage as usual. The Pyramid Marquee hosts all flavours of electronic dance on Thursday and Friday. And then it's the upcoming talent, the more intimate performances and dance beats into the small hours on Saturday and Sunday. In the Barn, it will be nice to see old friends, but discover tomorrow's heroes. It's a sort of in-festival concert hall. Rock Werchter books acts from every musical genre. And it goes down well. The festival is an international hit. At Eurosonic in Groningen, Rock Werchter scooped the European Festival Award for "Best European Festival Line-Up". More than 140,000 (unique) festival goers from all around the world found their way to a sold-out Rock Werchter over the four days of the festival in 2012.
A while ago, we already announced that Rammstein will be headliner on Saturday July 6th. Tickets for Rock Werchter 2013 will go on sale as from Friday November 2nd. More information will be announced soon.
