The Strokes frontman Julian Casablancas has responded to criticism over the band’s headline show at Roskilde festival in Denmark.
The performance, which took place last Saturday (2 July), received comments online from festival goers which claimed the band were half an hour late on stage and that Casablancas was seemingly intoxicated upon arrival.
Attendees suggested that the frontman’s ad-libs between songs were questionable, with one video showing Casablancas giving a two minute intro to “Last Nite”.
“All through the concert these negative, incongruous monologues between the songs started getting longer and longer, completely ruining the energy and momentum of the experience” one gig-goer wrote on Reddit.
“This was absolutely bizarre. People were pumped for the show but Julian was completely off the rails”, read another comment.
Soundvenue gave the gig one star in an online review, claiming that Casablancas made “one inappropriate and instantly momentum-killing comment after another” during his “incoherent monologues”.
In a now deleted Instagram post (reported by Stereogum), Casablanas refuted the claims. “I’m not tuned into twitter things enough to know what some confused fan thinks or pretends they know, but i’m fine… far as i know,” he wrote. “People been asking me weiiird questionnns – ahh the dumb side of social media… Lame-Os running around so hard and free.”
“PS the concerns and questions are kind and fine! it’s the strangers announcing /acting like they know some s*** that’s dumb. (weird questions not the dumb side haha),” he continued, before the post was deleted.
Other attendees disputed the claims about how the show went down.
“Except for the 30 minute delay, I had zero problems with anything about the concert” one Reddit user wrote, adding “some people are exaggerating, and lying about how it went (eg., Julian dissed the crowd, festival cut them short, they only played half a set, just stuff like that which didn’t happen). I don’t care that people think this but I don’t like misinformation.”
The Independent has contacted a representative of the band for comment.
