To The End documentary separates Britpop heavyweights from Oasis

Blur vs Oasis? I didn’t buy any in ’95. First of all, memories of the Sherbet-Skyhooks fight were haunting and someone was always rehashing the Beatles-Stones nonsense after a few drinks. Call me unsympathetic, but all of these bands seem completely grumpy to me.

I’m not so sure since Oasis chose to cash in on their cute sibling battle game for a mega-hyped “reunion” tour. It’s just the two Gallagher brothers plus ringtones, so we can forget about the original group chemistry, let alone the new material. Creatively bankrupt nostalgia is fine, but it’s hardly the breakfast of champions.

then there is Blur: All the wayLondon filmmaker Toby L’s new documentary will have a limited release in Australia this month. An intimate, poignant study of a “legacy” rock band in dignified evolution, it documents everything Oasis were not: a group of brothers reunited by love, honesty, mature insight and creative inspiration.

Toby L’s first gig, aged 10, was to see Blur at the 1,200-capacity Wembley Arena at the height of the Britpop wars in the 1990s. Therefore, the empathy in eyewitness testimony regarding the making of their 2023 reunion album The Ballad of Darrenand a thrilling two-night debut at Wembley Stadium in front of 80,000 fans each night.

He also worked with Liam Gallagher in the concert film. Knebworth 22so when pressed he prefers the “apples and oranges” argument. But it’s not hard to see which way he leans when it comes to commercial value and artistic value.

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“I can’t speak for Liam, Noel and the rest of the Oasis camp,” he says. “But they didn’t say anything specific about what they wanted to be in their careers: they really wanted to be successful. So on one of the album covers there’s a fucking Rolls-Royce parked in a swimming pool. They were there to come out of nowhere and tear it apart.

“The great thing about Blur is that they are pure. I would say with the privileged access we have…they couldn’t and wouldn’t (reunite) unless there was a purpose and a meaning. This is for the audience, for their music, and for their friendship. And these are the right reasons to do it.

What hurts most deeply is the friendship reshaped after a long estrangement by the challenges of large-scale recording and touring intrigue. Earlier in the film, singer Damon Albarn, hugging schoolmate Graham Coxon, bassist Alex James and drummer Dave Rowntree at his Devon country house, sobs as he plays a new song inspired by the unspoken loss of his marriage.