Damon Albarn Apologises For Blur Pulling Out Of Big Day Out

Blur frontman Damon Albarn has opened up on the band's shock Big Day Out cancellation late last year, apologising for the situation but saying they'd lost faith in the festival promoters.

Speaking to the New Zealand Herald, Albarn said the shows were going to be the last for the band.

“That was going to be the last Blur show – the end of playing together – and I didn't want it to finish on anything other than a very positive note, because Blur is incredibly precious to all of us,” he said.

"But I was genuinely concerned that the whole thing wouldn't be quite as spiritually conclusive as we hoped it would be, because we weren't sure if the organisation was quite right, or supportive of our ambitions. They [the festival organisers] weren't being straight with me about things, which they needed to be, and at that point I became disillusioned because I didn't want what we'd done throughout the year, with Blur, to be undermined or tarnished in any way, by a show that wasn't going to be what we wanted to do.”

Albarn, who has previously said that Blur won't be touring in the foreseeable future as he concentrates on other projects – including a solo album – added that he was “truly, terribly sorry to everyone that we let down, but we just didn't want to be anything other than what I felt we deserved to be – our best. If we'd played – and not been that – it would have let people down even more.”

He said, “We'd been playing for six months solidly, around the world, so I knew that we would deliver a fantastic show, a great performance and a communal event, which everyone would have enjoyed. All I asked was that the organisation recognised that and I didn't feel they did. So, that's why, unfortunately, we couldn't come.”

Blur were originally billed as one of the festival's 'White Whales' alongside Pearl Jam and Arcade Fire. It ended up being one of the most talked-about years for Australia's most recognisable touring festival, with co-owners C3 Presents eventually stepping in to counter media reports that they'd gone broke.