Blur announced last year they were getting back together to play as a foursome again after a self-imposed exile from the business as Blur. Then last week saw the band complete their comeback by playing together live for the first time in a decade. What’s left to achieve? Well, apart from the huge arena shows and festival headlining slots, there’s the small question of new material, a question which blights any reformed band.

Graham Coxon has already spoken about the possibility of Blur recording music together again, stating back in April that it will likely happen but it won’t be immediately. Now, other members of the band have backed up Coxon’s remarks but also revealed that the magic is already returning, with rehearsals turning into impromptu jamming sessions.

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Blur announced last year that they were reforming as a four piece after Damon Albarn and Graham Coxon finally decided to put the past, and their differences, behind them. They’re now about to embark on a UK arena tour, starting in Manchester on June 26 and continuing at London’s Hyde Park (July 2-3). With those massive gigs, and the prospect of headlining Glastonbury looming, the lads played a warm-up gig tonight (June 13).

This one-off gig was invite-only and purely for friends and family, and, it would seem, at least one NME journalist. It took place at the East Anglian Railway Museum near Colchester, the site of Blur’s first ever gig when they were playing for a birthday party and still known as ‘Seymour’. How times change.

This gig represented the first time Blur had played live together as a four piece in about a decade, so there would have been some excuse for them being rusty. However, by all accounts, they were nothing of the sort, and banged out a two-hour set which included their biggest hits as well as early tracks specially for long-time fans.

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Gorillaz may only be a cartoon band at heart but they were absolutely huge on both sides of the Atlantic and around the world a years ago. Then Damon Albarn and his fellow collaborators decided to call it day and go off and do other stuff.

This means we haven’t had a new Gorillaz album since Demon Days was released way back in 2005. But fans of the animated satirical anti-band won’t have to wait much longer for new material, with the third album due for release in 2010.

The source of this unofficial announcement is Albarn’s manager Chris Morrison, who revealed that his client already has around two album’s worth of material written but is rather busy at the moment with other commitments to fully pledge himself to recording the new album.

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Blur are back. And the majority of us who remember the glory days of the band are pleased as punch they decided to settle their differences and reform as a four piece. But while they have committed to touring again, what are the chances of some new material?

Blur haven’t made a record together since Think Tank in 2003. It was during the recording of this that Graham Coxon was asked to leave the band, and it took five years for Damon Albarn and him to forget the past and look to the future.

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Reforming is obviously the thing to do now. We’ve already seen Take That make a successful comeback, The Spice Girls a less successful one, and The Police reforming and then splitting up again. We’ve also seen Boyzone reform even though no-one asked them to, and Led Zeppelin announce plans to tour and release new material even though Robert Plant won’t be involved.

Then, more recently we learned about The Faces making plans, and just last week, Blur announced they were reforming after Damon Albarn and Graham Coxon put their differences aside to work together again. So, who is next? Could it be the time for The Smiths and The Stone Roses to get back together?

Both these bands fell apart due to creative differences, otherwise known as big arguments between at least two members of the group. And ever since they split, fans have been calling for them to get back together for one last hurrah to see if the magic is still there.

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It’s been a long time coming but at last Blur are back, having officially reformed with all four original members. Okay, so it isn’t like The Beatles reforming (which they’d have a job doing now anyway) but it’s still a brilliant moment for British music and one I want to celebrate.

Talk of a Blur reunion began last October when the four original members met up for lunch and a bit of a catch-up. But that was it, nothing else happened for almost a year before the petty squabbling seemed to raise its ugly head once again. Damon Albarn was reported to have said “Blur is over,” and Graham Coxon responded with a lengthy rant.

By November, the chances of a reunion were looking better, with Albarn stating how it was very possible he’d rejoin the group once again. By the end of November the band were rehearsing with each other as a four piece again for the first time since 2000, but no further plans were announced.

Now, on December 9, 2008, Blur are officially back. Damaon Albarn and Graham Coxon have apparently patched up the differences that lead to the split in the first place, and Alex James and Dave Rowntree are also along for the ride.

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The road to Blur reforming has been a long one, with many bumps on the way. But it looks as if it’s finally set to happen, although the reunion is only initially going to take the form of rehearsals.

As far back as October 2007, there was talk of a Blur reunion, but that ended up being just a lunch meeting, with all four former members once again going their separate ways straight afterwards. Fast forward a year, and the old arguments resurfaced, with Damon Albarn claiming “Blur is over.”

But November has brought good news, with Damon Albarn starting the month by stating that he could rejoin Blur at some stage in the future. Now he’s added detail to that in a pre-show chat with DJ Janice Long on BBC Radio 2.

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The Blur reunion saga, will they, won’t they, has been almost as long-running and confusing as the Led Zeppelin reunion debacle.

The latest news on Blur comes from former lead singer, Damon Albarn, who has stated that a Blur reunion is very possible, but not for a while.

It was over a year ago when the first rumblings of a thawing in the relationship between the band members became apparent.

The four original band members met up for lunch, and Albarn and Coxon, the two whose relationship fallout was claimed to be the main cause for the break up of the band, were civil to each other.

But then nothing more happened, with Albarn going back to work on his various projects, including Gorillaz, The Good, The Bad, and The Queen, and his rock opera, Monkey. A year then passed with nothing much being said on either side until Albarn claimed that Blur was over. This prompted Graham Coxon to write an incredible rant about the whole thing.

That seemed to be it, with Albarn not wanting to go backwards, and Coxon seemingly annoyed about the whole thing enough to move on. There have been rumors since that Coxon is working with Pete Doherty on either a collaboration or Pete’s solo album.

And so to present day, when Albarn has again brought talk of a reunion back up.

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It’s been almost a year since I last wrote about Blur, mainly because the band doesn’t exist at the moment after going on an indefinite hiatus in 2003. Last October saw the four original members of the band meet up for lunch but that was as far it went, with no hint of a studio return since.

Graham Coxon leaving (or being asked to leave) Blur in 2002 was the start of the end for the band, and since then, they have all gone their separate ways and partaken in various side projects, some successful, others not so. But, there is at least some hope for a reunion taking place at some time in the future, with the band insisting relations within the band remain amicable.

However, maybe the chances of a reunion have lessened in recent days. First of all, Blur front man Damon Albarn seemed to rule out a reunion ever taking place when he declared in an interview with Argentinian newspaper Clarin that “Blur is over”.

And now, Coxon has responded to this declaration in a long and rambling post on the band’s official message board. According to NME, Coxon wrote under his username, tweedo, and posted a stream-of-consciousness style update on his feeling about Blur and the chances of a reunion.

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Damon Albarn and Jamie Hewlett are the innovators and, dare I say it, geniuses behind the animated satirical anti-band Gorillaz. But while that is their best-known collaboration, with the band having two hugely successful albums, and worldwide fame, both are also famous for other things.

Albarn is of course the former lead singer of Blur, one of the two biggest Britpop bands, alongside Oasis. It may be telling that while Oasis are still going, Blur split long ago, and Albarn has moved on to many other projects. One of which, The Good, The Bad and The Queen, are still going strong.

Jamie Hewlett meanwhile is the co-creator of the legendary comic book, Tank Girl. While Albarn handles all of the music, Hewlett handles the artwork, and has won awards for it. He has also created the opening credits sequence for the BBC’s coverage of the Beijing Olympics.

The last time we saw the pair, they had collaborated on Monkey: Journey To The West, an operatic reworking of an old Chinese tale, which has played in Manchester and is coming to the Royal Opera House in London this week. And now they have announced their next project.

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