Blur’s Alex James announces Britpop Classical concert at The Big Feastival 2025: “I am really, really fucking genuinely excited”

4 April, 2025

Alex James

Blur‘s Alex James has announced plans for a Britpop Classical concert at this year’s Big Feastival. Check out info and footage of what to expect below.

The bash which combines live music with food attractions, is due to take place at James’ Cotswolds farm near Kingham, Oxfordshire, from August 22-24.

Much like the Ministry Of Sound Classical concerts, which reimagine classic dance tracks with an orchestra and guest singers, the musician and cheesemaker will lead a Britpop classical set, with a live band alongside a full orchestra, on the closing night (August 24) at his three day festival.

Announcing the concert at a special launch party at the LVLS in Hackney last night (April 3), James confirmed the show will feature the London Concert Orchestra and a band featuring two guitarists, two keyboardists, four singers and a number of special guests singing anthems by the likes of Blur, Oasis, Pulp, Supergrass and many more.

Alex James is seen with the musicians from RG Live during his Britpop Classical VIP launch at LVLS on April 3, 2025 in London CREDIT: Nicky J. Sims/Getty Images

He said: “Last summer we had Ministry Of Sound Classical headline and it literally fucking blew me away. It’s the best thing we’ve ever had at Feastival. It was all those festival anthems with a symphony orchestra, lasers, lightshow, full production. It was amazing. There was not a dry eye in the house.

“And I started thinking well maybe if we got some special guests involved and the team behind that, we could rock the party because a lot of those songs do feature string sections and brass sections. I don’t want to completely reimagine it, I just want to bring out the best of those songs.”

As for which special guests will feature, he did remain tight lipped but added: “I can confirm Phil Daniels is gonna do ‘Parklife’. Try and stop him. I’m sure that’s not much of a surprise. Mike Smith, Blur’s arranger and musical director is also orchestrating the Blur tracks. We’re gonna do proper job on it.”

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James said the outfit already has four and a half hours worth of material which he is looking to cut down to 90 minutes of hits.

“I really cannot think of a better way of bringing Feastival to a crescendo finale on a Sunday night this summer,” he added before joking: “Oasis doing it that just wouldn’t work. They’re not foodies their crowd. Blur doing Feastival would be a bit like Blur playing on a Gorillaz record, it’s not why I started it. [In all seriousness] I am really, really fucking genuinely excited.”

As a taster to the concert, a Britpop Classical string quartet performed a host of classics at last night’s event including Blur’s hits ‘Song 2’, ‘Parklife’ and ‘The Universal’ alongside the like of The Verve‘s ‘Bitter Sweet Symphony’, Oasis’ ‘Wonderwall’ and ‘Don’t Look Back In Anger’ and Radiohead‘s ‘Creep’.

James also played a DJ set of Britpop classics including a remix of Blur’s ‘Song 2’ mashed up with Nirvana‘s ‘Smells Like Teen Spirit’, The Boo Radleys‘ ‘Wake Up Boo!’ along with older classics like The La‘s ‘There She Goes’ and The Charlatans‘ ‘The Only One I Know’.

Nelly Furtado will headline the event on Friday (August 22), with Faithless, taking the top slot on Saturday (August 23). Travis, The Wombats and Sophie Ellis-Bextor will also feature as special guests. You can purchase any remaining tickets here.

Becky Hill and Snow Patrol headlined last year’s event alonsgide Cat Burns, Cian Ducrot, Natasha Bedingfield, Kate Nash, Ash and Scouting For Girls.

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