As it turns out, not everyone on Planet Earth adores Gorillaz. UK psych-doom outfit Uncle Acid & the Deadbeats have lashed out at Damon Albarn and his cartoon band for getting their Thursday, July 2nd, set at Roskilde Fest cut short.
Gorillaz and Uncle Acid were booked on dueling stages, with the former set to perform at 10 p.m. on the Orange stage and the latter beginning at 10:15 p.m. on the Lagune stage. In a statement posted to Instagram, Uncle Acid alleged that “pop diva” Albarn “threw a hissy fit while we played, threatened to storm off stage before finally getting our set shut down because we were ‘too loud.’ They were the only headliner of the whole weekend who couldn’t cope with playing at the same time as other artists.”
“Unfortunately we only managed 25 minutes of assaulting his precious ears from our stage half a mile away before his goons came over and pulled the plug. Despite us being below the festival dB limit and offering to turn down FOH to continue the show, they wanted us off,” Uncle Acid added.
Seemingly backing up Uncle Acid’s version of events, Albarn was captured on camera telling the crowd during Gorillaz’s set (via The PRP), “Is it supposed to be possible for me to hear the other music so clearly?” before adding, “We can just stop playing and listen to the other thing instead, that’s fine with me.”
For their part, Roskilde’s organizers blamed the early cancellation on weather concerns, saying the festival had been dealing with similar issues and other disruptions throughout the day.
“The interruption was caused by a combination of wind conditions and technical factors that affected the sound production,” organizers said. “When hosting a large outdoor live event, changing weather conditions can sometimes create operational challenges.”
In his own Instagram Story (via Stereogum), Uncle drummer Jon Rice pushed back on Roskilde’s explanation, pointing to similar “sound bleed” experienced during The Cure’s headlining set.
“Apologies to everyone who attended Roskilde Festival with the intentions of watching the full Uncle Acid set last night. 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. We can’t apologize enough for the premature end of our set but it wasn’t our call to make.
“Funnily enough, The Cure (who headlined the festival on a previous day) played at the same time as Monolord and could faintly hear the sound from the same stage we played on, but powered through like professionals. Our Front of House sound engineer was 2db below the festival mandated decibel limit for the entirety of our gig as well, so the ‘we were playing too loud’ excuse doesn’t hold water.
Rice also further shamed Albarn and Gorillaz:
“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.”
Then, as a final, slightly petty volley, Rice went on to add, “‘Cartoon band’ indeed. All in all, @damonalbarn and @gorillaz are soft as baby shit. FUCK’ EM.”
With a forthcoming North American tour, as well as international art exhibitions, Gorillaz remain as busy as ever in supporting The Mountain. Uncle Acid, meanwhile, have their own hefty tour schedule slated for the fall.
@ruesername Finally seeing this live 😍 #gorillaz #feelgoodinc #damonalbarn #roskildefestival
