Pearl Jam have spoken for the first time about co-headlining the Big Day Out - and guitarist Stone Gossard is ready to take Blur on at the business end of the festival.
Not that Gossard, who was speaking to TimeOut this week ahead of the release of the band's 10th
album, Lightning Bolt, on October 10, knows much about the British group even though the two bands' debut albums were released within a day of each other in 1991.
Like most Americans, Gossard got into Blur only when their 1997 self-titled album, with bombastic single Song 2 on it, became a hit across the Atlantic and took the former Britpop heroes from no names to superstars in the US.
"I think they're an incredible band but I'm not a hardcore fan," he said.
Gossard had to ask TimeOut about Blur's recent history, because he vaguely knew that "they were not a band for 10 years or something. Is that right? So they're going to be rocking hard and we're going to have to bring our A-game to keep it going."
