Reviving Tender Memories
February 5, 2010MAG designer/illustrator Guy Shield takes a trip back to his youth with Blur's reunion DVD, No Distance Left to Run.
Aged 16, Blur-crazy and on the awkward cusp of my adolescence, I was stuck deliberating whether to model myself on Graham Coxon, or Alex James.
Coxon was everything I wanted to savour about being a teenager; he was an introverted genius. James, on the other hand was the champagne-guzzling extrovert who got all the girls. Either way, I didn’t want to be Damon Albarn.
Twelve years on, this slow-burning doco re-affirmed the sentiment; it’s not easy being Albarn. What makes this scrapbook of one of 2009’s biggest reunions so fascinating is its presentation of glamour and raw, emotional grit in equal measure. Everything that brought the ‘britpop’ darlings to fame and subsequently tore them apart is here, from the band directly.
Juxtaposing breathtaking footage of the band’s tours and archival stock of their glory days in ’90s Britannia, both stories delicately tell an emotional tale, while portraying the band’s founding four in their new mid-life light, re-discovering the joys of their days together, skillfully avoiding cliché.
Albarn still comes across as the outspoken performer/perfectionist that made him the ‘king of britpop’, articulately discussing his unpopularity in school, the Oasis feud, and his break-up with Elastica’s Justine Frischmann. While it’s nice to see him being a bit more earnest and anecdotal these days (and following a flawless performance of Tender, at Glastonbury last year – utterly humbled), there are still some minor wince-inducing moments that make you appreciate an almost no-holds-barred look at one of England’s biggest bands. By Guy Shield
