Blur’s Dave Rowntree would “definitely go and see” old Britpop rivals Oasis on their reunion tour.
Despite the two groups’ intense rivalry in the mid-1990s, which saw them trade insults and fight each other in the charts, the 60-year-old drummer insists he would jump at the chance to see former enemies Noel and Liam Gallagher back onstage next year.
He told the BBC: “Blur and Oasis combined changed what the pop music genre meant, and that doesn’t happen very often.”
Dave, who is also a politician, noted how their clashes were heightened by the “North-South” divide in the UK.
He said: “So people wanting to see England as a North-South divided country could lay that on there, people that wanted to view it in terms of class could do that.”
Blur’s frontman Damon Albarn – who predicted Oasis would get back together – previously admitted to getting “caught up” in the hype.
The ‘Parklife’ hitmaker also conceded that he couldn’t beat Noel “in a war of words”.
He told the Guardian newspaper: “We were young and we let ourselves get caught up in it. And the competitiveness was ridiculous for a while, but, you know, I was never gonna beat Noel in a war of words.”
Whilst there is no animosity between Blur and Oasis these days, Noel once infamously wished that bassist Alex James and Damon would “catch AIDS and die” at the height of their chart battle.
Years later, the ‘Supersonic’ hitmaker teamed up with Damon to perform backing vocals on his band Gorillaz’ track ‘We Got the Power’ in 2017, and Noel admitted his teenage self would have been decidedly unimpressed.
He told Big Issue magazine:” What would my younger self think of me working with Damon Albarn?
“It would depend entirely on what side of the bed I got out of on that day.
“If you caught me on a good day I’d be like, yeah, I could see that happening.
“On a bad day, I’d f****** knife myself in the b*******.”