When these two Hyde Park shows were announced last December, we ran a piece in UNCUT celebrating the return to active service of Blur, where David Cavanagh quite reasonably asked the question: which Blur are coming back? After all, here was a band who had undergone many creative iterations during their recording lifetime; equally, so much had happened since the four of them last played together, in July 2000, it seemed appropriate to wonder what Blur would do with these shows. Could they really reconnect with the moptops who made the buoyant baggy pop of “There’s No Other Way”? Would they really revisit “Parklife”, a song intrinsically linked to an era and movement they’d subsequently gone to considerable lengths to distance themselves from? And what about the more abstract, edgier material from the later albums – what place would that have in Hyde Park?
Nick Cave and The Bad Seeds are set to headline the closing night at next month's Latitude festival, and they will be aiming to win over new fans as well as please the faithful with their set list, says Bad Seed Jim Sclavunos; the drummer returns to Suffolk for a second year after performing with Nick Cave and Warren Ellis and Martyn Casey as Grinderman last year.
With the Gossip's latest album Music For Men out this week (June 22), the band's force of nature front woman took time out to talk to us about their Uncut Arena headline show at Latitude next month.