On one of the first occasions I met one of my oldest and dearest friends, aged 13, we sat in my bedroom staring at posters of Blur and Oasis and debating which band was better. Our criteria was questionable. “Which has a better name?” I said. “Oasis, definitely,” my friend replied. She made a face. “What kind of a name is Blur?”

Despite this erudite conversation, we would go on to adore Blur and be staunch in our support for them as the superior choice in the 90s chart battles. It was “Country House” not Oasis’s “Roll With It” that we raved about as both competed for the top spot in August 1995. Our group strummed on tennis rackets as if they were guitars when “Song 2” came out. We wore Converse trainers like frontman Damon Albarn and enthusiastically recited lyrics denigrating suburban middle life like “End of a Century” as if we too were subversive musicians from Leytonstone.

We read the NME, extolled B-sides and eventually started buying CDs for the first time. We didn’t manage to see Blur live as teenagers, but we did see Pulp and were enraged when Jarvis Cocker handed his cigarette to another girl from our school in the mosh pit. 

Loving Britpop felt integral to who we felt we were. Scrappy, arty, alternative. Never mind that we were at a girls’ school in Scotland where some of our peers really did have a big, big house in the country. Somehow all that made Britpop mean more to us. It was our ticket to another identity. Our ticket to the adulthood we wanted. I had also only recently moved to the UK from Greece, where I’d spent my childhood, and for me, Britpop is inseparable from the sense of political and national optimism that emerged at that time. Tony Blair’s 1997 landslide election victory for Labour and the Cool Britannia cultural vibe were one and the same. It didn’t just feel like music. It felt like a brave new world. 

I imagine everyone feels this way about the bands they loved as teenagers, but Blur (and a few others too: Radiohead, Supergrass, Travis, Pulp, and yes, Oasis) were my intro to loving music and so have remained the definition of good music to me even now. Guitars. A proper band. Lyrics you can dissect and chords you could maybe learn to play and songs you can listen to again and again and again. I’ve seen Blur once before, at Hyde Park in 2009, but there was something different about the Wembley gig a couple of weekends ago. A greater surge of nostalgia and togetherness.

Maybe that’s just my age. I’m 41, finally through the tunnel of very young children and sleepless nights, and seeing bands I loved as a teenager makes me feel as young as it makes me feel old. Maybe it was the set list, with so many classics from those albums that coincided with my coming of age: Parklife, The Great Escape, Blur.

There was a glorious mix of people and ages. Fifty-year-olds bopping along to “Girls & Boys”; 20-year-olds swaying euphorically to “Under the Westway”. Or maybe it’s just that enough time has passed that the 90s finally feels like an era far enough away for those who lived it. An era worthy of club nights, fashion revivals (hello, grunge) and yes, the undying nostalgia of fans like these.

Will, 42, charity worker

In the early 90s, my younger sister and I had an au pair from Germany who wanted to come to the UK to learn English, immerse herself in the music scene and rekindle a relationship with… Graham Coxon (Blur’s lead guitarist). He used to phone our landline to speak to her and, in return, our au pair got my sister and me into Modern Life-era Blur (Modern Life Is Rubbish, the band’s second album). Our first gig (I was 14, my sister was 12) was to see the band at Mile End in June 1995 (with exemplary Britpop support of Dodgy and Boo Radleys). I must have seen Blur play at least another half-dozen times over the years, including at Reading Festival, Brixton Academy, Hyde Park and, of course, Wembley. The relationship between our au pair and Graham didn’t work out but I believe the line “Du bist sehr schön” from “Girls & Boys” was written about her! We certainly belted it out on the hallowed turf last weekend. 

Jess, 39, journalist

This is embarrassing but my love of Blur is inextricably linked to my crush on Damon Albarn. I was on holiday when “Charmless Man” came out. Everyone was singing it. I’d been watching the 1995 TV adaptation of Pride and Prejudice and, like everyone, I thought I had a crush on Colin Firth. Then one night I had a dream about Damon in a Regency carriage. And when I woke up it was a bit like that moment in Clueless where Cher realises she fancies Josh. I was like, “Oh. I really fancy Damon Albarn.” I think it was a combination of his being aloof and cool and the cheeky chappy thing. I also just really enjoyed their music and I think it stands up now. It’s so inventive and poppy, which gives it broad appeal. 

Kate Calder, 43, chef

I saw Blur in Toronto in 1994, with Pulp opening for them, and it was the best concert I have ever been to. There weren’t many Britpop fans at my Canadian high school but my friends and I went to every concert we could. Elastica, Menswear, Suede. Our group of girlfriends were little freaks at our high school. Cool girls liked hippy stuff like the Grateful Dead and cool boys liked hip-hop and the more rock side of grunge, like Soundgarden. But I had a friend with an older, very cool sister and that’s how Modern Life Is Rubbish was given to me, via a mixtape.

Mixtapes were the defining moment of a friendship. If someone dug the mixtape you made them, then you became instant best friends. Listening to Britpop was like an escape to people I didn’t know who got me. Now that I live in the UK, I understand those “people I didn’t know” to be English art school students, which makes sense. My crew were very artsy, into great film, TV and music. 

Buying British music magazines became a thing. Our walls were covered with the NME. We got into the clothes. Whatever was playing on my Walkman was who I was dressing like that day. Blur were also fun! You could jump around to the music, the lyrics were describing a world I wanted to explore and they were a bunch of ridiculously cute boys. Heaven for a 15-year-old girl.

Sebastian, 41, banker

My mates and I were probably a bit more into Oasis at the time, but we did also love Blur and I remember trying to learn the guitar riffs. I’ve always thought their lyrics were more sophisticated than Oasis, too. Maybe every group felt like this at school but I think those of us who were into indie music and Britpop felt superior, like we were the ones who really understood music. We’d get the Central line into London and spend hours in HMV. There was such a big music scene emerging in the 90s, you really felt like you were there at the beginning of something. 

I find it funny to think of now because we’re all the sorts of people Blur’s social commentary was having a go at back then. Middle-aged. Suburban. I still love them, though. And anyway, aren’t they like that themselves now? Blur’s bassist Alex James lives in the Cotswolds and makes cheese. 

Anita*, 41, PR

Blur remind me of a simpler time of great music, teenage crushes and growing up. It was easier to be a teenager. You could live your life without the ominous presence of the social media overlords. I cannot imagine what it feels like to grow up with that pressure, and Britpop makes me think of the times I spent forming lasting female friendships based on things like liking Blur more than Oasis. Those friendships have stayed firm, same as our love of good music. Those bands taught me what it is like to truly love a band, to love music and to hang off their lyrics like they’re some sort of gospel for life!

*Name changed for privacy 

Blur’s new album The Ballad of Darren is out on 21 July