Gorillaz Singer Yanked After Show Goes On (and On and On)

Damon Albarn takes over the Roskilde Festival
By Brownie Marie,  Newser Staff
Posted Jul 6, 2015 10:44 AM CDT

Sometimes you just wanna rock. And rock. And rock. Such was the case over the weekend when Blur frontman and Gorillaz founder Damon Albarn refused to leave the stage at Denmark's Roskilde Festival. A security guard eventually hoisted Albarn in the air and carried him stage right, as the Telegraph's video footage from the concert shows. Albarn played a marathon five-hour set as part of the Africa Express project and was defiant when asked to leave the stage around 4am. "F--k what everyone says. You want more, we're going to give you more," he told the crowd. The audience egged the rocker on, chanting, "We want more" and joining him in singing "Should I Stay or Should I Go."

The band had already decided on the latter—leaving Albarn alone on a piano with an apparently insatiable crowd. The unbridled performance was in keeping with the 47-year-old's description of the project, however. "It's borderline insane, I'd say," he told the BBC in 2012. "It's a blitz of collaborative mayhem. ... The nice thing about Africa Express is it's always been a very free, open idea." The 80-member collective is comprised of musicians from across Africa, the US, and the UK, including English singer and composer Brian Eno and Malian band Songhoy Blues. Before being carted off the stage, Albarn performed with Yeah Yeah Yeahs' Nick Zinner, British singer Laura Mvula, and others. (More Gorillaz stories.)

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