Blur’s Alex James has called Glastonbury Festival a “gory drugs bender”, and said that with the hype it gets, “you’d think it’s the only festival in the world”.
The bassist, who also runs his own festival, Big Feastival, shared his comments about the iconic festival held annually at Worthy Farm during a new interview with The Times.
In the interview, he explained that he thinks there are far superior festival events to Glasto taking place across Europe, but people don’t seem to give them the same praise as the South West England event, which spans between 900 to 1,500 acres.
“You’d think it’s the only festival in the world,” he shared, adding that he sees it as “a gory drugs bender” when compared to festivals like Roskilde in Denmark which are more “underrated”.
“Roskilde’s got amazing food because it’s Denmark, it’s just really civilised and the toilets are nice. It’s a wonderful, magical, Hans Christian Andersen fairytale of an event,” he said.
Blur have played at Glastonbury multiple times, making their debut on the NME Stage in 1992, and headlining in both 1998 and 2009.
They dropped their latest album ‘The Ballad Of Darren’ in 2023, which was their first in eight years, and made headlines the following year when frontman Damon Albarn criticised the crowd during their set at Coachella.
The Britpop icons delivered a career-spanning set, including fan favourites like ‘Song 2’ and ‘Popscene’, however during their performance of ‘Girls & Boys’ the crowd appeared pretty tame, which visibly irritated Albarn.
“You can do it better than that,” he told attendees at one point while trying to conduct a sing-along to the 1994 track, which was met by a quiet crowd. When he still didn’t get the desired response, the frontman seemingly vowed not to perform there again. “You’re never seeing us again, so you might as well fucking sing it. Know what I’m saying?” he added.
Earlier this spring, James – who also has a career as a winemaker and cheesemaker – spoke to NME about taking his orchestral celebration of the ’90s on the road for the first time, after premiering it at his Big Feastival event this summer.
He also spoke about the controversy around their 2024 Coachella slot, saying: “Coachella is the biggest festival in the world. As someone who runs a festival, I was impressed by that. I thought it was great.”
James started Big Feastival in 2011, organising it with Jamie Oliver and initially holding it on Clapham Common in London. It then moved permanently to the bassist’s farm in Kingham, Oxfordshire, from 2012 and has stayed there in the years since. This year, it will be headlined by Basement Jaxx, The Streets and Bastille.