Blur’s Alex James has branded Glastonbury festival as a “gory drugs bender”.
The 57-year-old bassist – who runs his own festival, Big Feastival, on his family farm in the Cotswolds – is of the opinion that there are far superior music events than the world-famous extravaganza in South West England.
He told The Times: “You’d think it’s the only festival in the world.”
By contrast, Alex said Roskilde festival in Denmark is “underrated”.
He expanded: “Glastonbury is a gory drugs bender.
“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.”
Blur have graced Glasto a handful of times, including making their debut on the NME Stage in 1992, while they topped the Pyramid Stage in 1998 and 2009.
Alex’s pop at Glasto comes after he reflected on Blur’s headline sets at Coachella 2024, which made headlines after frontman Damon Albarn criticised the crowd.
The Britpop legends’ set at the California music festival bombed as the younger audience were less than impressed.
Despite the drama, he insisted he holds no grudges, calling Coachella “the biggest festival in the world” and praising its scale.
At the time, Damon suggested Blur were “probably” playing their “last gig”.
As they prepared to play Tender, the final song of the set, the vocalist told the crowd: “In the spirit of clarity and truth, this is probably our last gig.”
Blur reunited in 2023 to release new album The Ballad of Darren – their first studio LP in eight years – and perform two huge shows at Wembley Stadium in London.
Meanwhile, Alex previously suggested their future could look like an ABBA-style avatar show – or “respectfully” dipping in and out of playing together.
Speaking to Ken Bruce on Greatest Hits Radio in 2025, he said: “We got back together in 2023, made a new record and I think did our best ever run of shows. It’s incredible how the music has endured and it was the first time we’d ever got to the end of an album or tour without at least one of us saying ‘that’s it, never again.’ We didn’t do many shows and I think that was probably a good place to leave it.”
He continued: “There’s two ways to go either the ABBA thing and stop at the top and just let it take its own course and make avatars of yourself when you were 27 and beautiful. Or treat it respectfully and dip in and out occasionally and it’s a really wonderful thing to be able to step back into – that all those years of playing together is a gift actually. As long as you don’t overcook it or annoy the guitar player or singer too much…”
