Blur offers "Fools" Day" as free download following Record Store Day sell-out

(AFP PHOTO/Leon Neal)

After copies of its limited 7" single "Fools' Day" sold out almost instantly on Record Store Day, British band Blur has offered the track - the group's first single since 2003 - as a free download on its website.

According to NME Magazine, fans at independent record shops throughout the UK lined up well in advance of the stores' openings - some lines held as many as 300 people and began as early as 3am on Saturday - to get their hands on one of the 1,000 vinyls that had been pressed.

Blur's manager explained on the band's website, "To avoid fans having to illegally obtain an inferior copy of this track from pirate sites - we have made it freely available through the band's website."

Recorded in London earlier this month, "Fool's Day" is the first song the four members of Blur have recorded together since "Battery In Your Leg" from the album 2003 Think Tank.

http://www.blue.co.uk