Sound bleed forces Roskilde to cut Uncle Acid set after Gorillaz complaint
Roskilde Festival was forced to cut short a performance by Uncle Acid & The Deadbeats after headliners Gorillaz threatened to walk off stage over sound bleed, exposing the logistical vulnerabilities of major European outdoor events.
Gorillaz’s headlining set at Roskilde Festival on Thursday was disrupted by sound bleeding from a neighbouring stage, prompting organisers to abruptly halt Uncle Acid & The Deadbeats' performance.
Fifteen minutes into Gorillaz’s set on the Orange Stage, Uncle Acid began playing on the Legune stage. Damon Albarn paused his performance to ask the crowd, "Is it supposed to be possible for me to hear the other music so clearly?" He then suggested the band could "just stop playing and listen to the other thing instead."
Roskilde organisers subsequently pulled the plug on Uncle Acid after half an hour. The festival told Soundvenue the audio overlap was "an incredibly unfortunate situation for everyone affected," caused by "an interaction between wind conditions and technical conditions." The festival stated it was adjusting its programme to account for the weather.
Uncle Acid drummer Jon Rice disputed the technical justification. He stated their front of house sound engineer operated 2db below the festival's mandated decibel limit throughout the set. Rice alleged Gorillaz threatened to storm off stage entirely if Uncle Acid continued, forcing organisers to tell thousands of agitated fans the set would not continue.
The premature cancellation triggered a loud "SHAME ON YOU" chant from the crowd, directed at the headliners. Uncle Acid's official Instagram account called Albarn a "pop diva" of a "novelty cartoon act," claiming they were the only headliner all weekend who could not cope with concurrent performances. They noted The Cure had managed similar sound bleed from the same stage on a previous day without incident.
Rice offered a blunter assessment on his own social media, calling Albarn and Gorillaz "soft as baby shit." The disruption adds another chapter to Albarn’s turbulent history at Roskilde, following a 2015 incident where he was removed from the stage for refusing to end a set, and a 2018 set cut short when a guest artist fell off the stage.
