B-Roads

[daii]

the bike scene LMAO so cringeeee

the best bit its the Best Days video, shame it's playback, could have been a nice videoclip, somehow it reminded me to the Pulp documentary

[Caitlin]

Only just woke up so haven't had a chance to look at the video but I will say that as someone who has a copy of it from when it was around the first time - cool? Like it its out I'm pleased? Because it's finally going to stop all this speculation and bad energy about some people having it and others not.
Personally I never leaked it cause I didn't want to have to deal with legal action or get the person who originally leaked in shit. Was never an elitism thing. I can understand how people have seen it like that, but I've always been pretty open about my motivations for not uploading it anywhere.

Would be interested to see if this is the same video as what got leaked back in the day or if there's been any changes though.

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Only Carnival of Light needs to come out now before the light of God saves us or something

[aldamasta]

the bike scene LMAO so cringeeee

Wonderfully cringe hehe. MUCH better than the 10-15 minutes of swingers

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In it's own way the Best Days bit would make a lovely music video

[thestunt]

Thanks to whoever uploaded… obviously would be better with more of the live audio… i can see why its not seen the light of day really before now as its a bit niche and the interviews are a touch surreal , would it have sold that much back in the day? That being said maybe it would have improved a bit if it was finished.. who knows.. did enjoy matt lucas being around so much… either way thanks!, just taken about 28 years to see it

[essex-dogs]

Just finished watching it! I don't usually post here but I just had to give my two pennies. Wow I had so many thoughts while watching it, crazy to think it's an 1h documentary only, that's super short in my opinion.

[SPOILER ALERT]

I can see why Blur never felt so compelled to release this. To start with, we barely see any Dave Rowntree, we only have that flight scene, but that's all I guess? I don't know, I had the impression it really focus heavily on Damon and Graham really, occasionally on Alex. Also, it really has some really silly moments, almost too amateur for a band like 1995 Blur - Alex on the floor, Damon showing his ass, cringe things like that. I totally get the whole "we're behind the scenes, we're just among friends" vibe, I'm just not sure if perhaps they used it a bit too much? But not much of a problem really, definitely not enough to shelve the whole thing for almost 30 years and keep it as a taboo thing within the fanbase.

But in the end, for me the elephant in the room for shelving the project is the whole format of the thing itself. Personally, I had never seen anything like that for a band documentary and I honestly felt a bit confused at first. By the end of it I was completely in love, everything made so much sense and it represented the album so well. It's actually a very clever video but I wouldn't be surprised if some people found it baffling or even boring. Not sure if "embarrassing" is the word, but "confusing" I suppose.

Some of the montage videos in it are so cool. I absolutely loved the whole bit from Alex on a boat to the "He Thought Of Cars" part. It really took an unexpected turn and left the whole thing so dark and mellow for so many scenes. For me it was brilliant for its similarity with the album experience I've always had - Too pop and too happy to the point you realize the whole thing's plastic and a big, big ironic message. "Best Days" is a great song but was never a favorite of mine. I did think that was the best bit of the documentary though. Singing it to elderly people in 1995 and watching it in 2022 made me think "wow all of them must be dead by now" and the whole "if you said these are the best days of our lives" line really made me reflect on life and things like "yeah we gotta enjoy it while we're still here". I know it's a bit dark but again, that's the sort of thing I feel from many tracks on "The Great Escape". Damon riding and whistling "The Horrors" and hearing the story about land owners, with the construction site scene immediately after being its dark reality parallel, the whole thing felt really ironic. I don't know man, it was kind of a trip, not sure if I'm making any justice to what I felt with words. The "Yuko and Hiro" montage also made the song felt richer, the whole documentary was a great visual experience for the album.

And regarding the actual band footage, it was so exciting too! Watching them perform "Topman" on the HMV store, the Mile End performance or a simple 1minute alternate version of Girls & Boys in soundcheck was really nice, specially considering the lack of 1995 live material available on the internet. If Blur decides to play "Topman" next year will be cool but it will never be the same thing as finally seeing them doing it in actual 1995, really living the thing while it was happening. I felt the same way when I watched that video of them performing at Tower Records in 1997 which recently became available and there's a casual performance of "Strange News From Another Star" there, just like that. As for the documentary now, too bad most of the actual audio for the performances was replaced with the studio version - that was lame.

Something Alex said about teenage girls making the popstar myth exists also left me reflective, specially considering Blur's comeback next year. Again, it's crazy to think the video is almost 30 years old but yet Alex already knew how things work back then. Blur's fanbase has grown a lot lately and it's hard to believe how many teenage fans they still have nowadays, it's like Blur's having a second chance to deal with the same situation in a different way, specially now they're all over 50 and possibly with different mindsets. I'm sure Damon's ass will be floating around in countless Tiktok posts very soon.

And at first these were some of my thoughts. I'm really glad it finally leaked. Sorry Blur.

[tom_cas1]

I doubt this will be up for long, someone is taking a big risk by posting it. Now we'll find out how bad it really is and whether or not it was worth debating for so long.

sigh....you can do better than this Tom!

Huh?

[jeffnottingham]

Wow - amazing to see! the download link has been restricted to a paid account because of high traffic, if any kind soul who managed to download could see it in their heart to PM a download via some other platform then huge gratitude would be wafted your way...

[Caitlin]

anyway, I don't think this is B roads

I'll absolutely confirm it is the video (the same or a very similar cut) that was floating around as b-roads about a decade ago.

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Just finished it. I went in expecting a slow film and I got a slow film. But where my expectations and the reality parted was I predicted it would be relatively light on - how shall we say - pathos, and there'd be a few (not many) 'ugly' (if rather tame) band scenes. What I got instead was a rather wonderfully directed quasi-art film about one of my favourite albums of all time.

[thespider]

Has anyone gone a link to download that doesn't have a pay-wall? I don't mind watching it on Vimeo but sooner or later, someone at Blur's label is going to find it and then it'll get deleted.

[aldamasta]

Just finished it. I went in expecting a slow film and I got a slow film. But where my expectations and the reality parted was I predicted it would be relatively light on - how shall we say - pathos, and there'd be a few (not many) 'ugly' (if rather tame) band scenes. What I got instead was a rather wonderfully directed quasi-art film about one of my favourite albums of all time.

I have basically the same reaction as you!

I also liked seeing the HMV rooftop footage! Didn’t expect it. However I’d rather not hear Topman in any circumstance unless I have a Time Machine back to 95-96… contender for worst blur song for me. I’d listen to Crazy Beat, Gene by Gene, Daisy Bell a million times before Topman. Haven’t listened to it and years and b-roads reminded me why

[Blurcast]

Just watched it. As an archive snapshot of that time I thought it was fascinating. Really captured that period. So good to see things again that you never knew were recorded. I'm guessing a small handful of fans are rather annoyed their little exclusive is out in the open.

All I can say is.... THANK GOD!! I'm relieved it's finally out there! I doubt any of us that have had a copy for a while are in any way annoyed either - it's never been about keeping an exclusive thing to ourselves. It's always been about honouring a promise to the person who shared in the first place.

Back when I still ran my Blurcast website, I was asked if there was a way to share it as a stream so everyone on the forum could watch it but when it was clear that we couldn't guarantee someone wouldn't capture the stream, we had to drop the plan. Then the label shut down all talk of it and we were kind of forced into keeping it to ourselves. I didn't leak it, but I'd be lying if I said I didn't think about it a few times back when I still had the site! Ultimately though, I never fancied getting myself or anyone else in trouble which is the position others have voiced many times on here and on the old forum.

At least we can now talk about it without things turning into an argument

[rich]

OK I'm glad it's real - it's rather sweet really...

Sorry Tom, my comment to you was - oh god, here we go again with all these caveats. No hard feelings anyway

Still can't comprehend why it was held back. I was expecting something like that Rolling Stones film with (alleged) groupie fucking on that plane. Oh well...