Uncle Acid and The Deadbeats have called out Gorillaz after the band allegedly forced an early end to their Roskilde Festival set.
Damon Albarn and co. were headlining the Danish festival’s Orange stage on Thursday (July 2), which coincided with the psych rockers’ set on the Legune stage. Problems occurred as Uncle Acid’s set was clearly audible at the Gorillaz show, which led to some perturbed comments from Albarn.
“Is it supposed to be possible for me to hear the other music so clearly?” Albarn asked the crowd, per reports from Danish newspaper Politiken. “We can just stop playing and listen to the other thing instead, that’s fine with me.”
As a result of the sound bleeding over, Roskilde shut down Uncle Acid’s set after half an hour.
The band later took to Instagram to react to the decision, with drummer Jon Rice writing on his Instagram story: “We were forced to cut our set short by Gorillaz due to what they called ‘technical difficulties,’ when in reality they could faintly hear the sound coming from our stage in between their songs and decided to throw a bitch fit, threatening to pull their gig entirely if we didn’t stop playing.”
He went on to write: “In addition to all of this, Gorillaz put the entire staff organizing Roskilde Festival in a horrible position, firstly having to deliver the news to us that we wouldn’t be able to play the remaining 30 minutes of our set and then having to tell thousands of very agitated fans who paid good money to see ALL of the bands that our set would not continue.
“They didn’t deserve the very loud ‘SHAME ON YOU’ chant the crowd leaned into when receiving the final verdict, but Gorillaz sure as fuck do.” Rice then added on one final story: “‘Cartoon band,’ indeed. All in all, @damonalbarn and @gorillaz are soft as baby shit. FUCK ‘EM.”
In a statement, Roskilde told NME the incident was an “extremely unfortunate situation for everyone involved”.
“We are sincerely sorry for the disappointment caused to both our participants and the artists, all of whom had been looking forward to a fantastic experience,” they added. “The decision was made as a result of a combination of wind conditions and technical factors that adversely affected the sound production. When staging a large outdoor live event, shifts in weather and wind conditions can occasionally create operational challenges.
“As the weather forecast indicated that windy conditions would continue Friday, we decided to make a series of adjustments and rotations to the programme. These measures were taken in order to reduce the risk of similar situations and ensure the best possible experience for both our participants and the artists.”
NME have contacted representatives for Gorillaz for comment.
Albarn has an unfortunate history with the festival. In 2018, Gorillaz were forced to bring their Roskilde performance to a premature end after their rapper Del the Funky Homosapien fell from the stage. Before that, in 2016, Albarn was carried off stage by security staff after he refused to end his five-hour performance.
In other Gorillaz news, their ‘House Of Kong’ exhibition is heading to New York for a limited run.
The immersive exhibition first launched in London last year and invites fans inside the fictional world of the band, exploring 25 years of Gorillaz history, artwork, music, characters and mythology.
They also recently released their ninth studio album ‘The Mountain’, which featured contributions from Sparks, IDLES, Omar Souleyman, Johnny Marr and more, alongside posthumous appearances from previous Gorillaz collaborators including Bobby Womack, Dennis Hopper, Tony Allen, Proof and Mark E Smith.
In a four-star review of ‘The Mountain’, NME described it as “arguably their most rich and complete since ‘Plastic Beach’”, concluding: “‘The Mountain’ is an album that celebrates the love you leave behind, the people you touch, the spirit of giving more than you take, how we’re all the same when it’s done.”
