October 27th, 2005 by 
Pete
Ike Turner, Neneh Cherry, Martina Topley-Bird and Booty Brown are the latest names to be added to the line-up for next week’s series of Gorillaz shows in Manchester.
Damon Albarn’s animated hip hop supergroup are due to play a run of five consecutive shows at the city’s Opera House, featuring a steller cast of live contributors.
The new names join a line-up that already includes Shaun Ryder, De La Soul, MF Doom and Roots Manuva. The enormous collective are set to unveil the band’s acclaimed “Demon Days” LP in full.
In an interview with The Times in the UK, Albarn and artist Jamie Hewlett, who designed the characters in the band, confirmed the full bill.
They also spoke about the future of Gorillaz, amid reports that their appearance at next week’s MTV Europe Awards will see the band appear as holograms.
Talking about the event, in Lisbon, Portugal, Hewlett explained: “We’re doing something that’s never, ever been done. We’re going to have the animated characters on stage. I suppose they’re like super-holograms.
“It’s what we’ve dreamt about doing since we began Gorillaz. It’s looking incredible. Mind you, for the effect to work, everyone has their places where they’re allowed to go and where they’re not.
“If you ran behind them, shining a torch at them, it would probably all go horribly wrong.”
Elsewhere in the interview, Albarn said he “hated” the last Blur tour, because of the absence of departed guitarist Graham Coxon.
He explained: “I never really liked the last Blur tour. I hated playing the old material. I just found that really depressing without Graham.
“It was a painful experience to play songs that belonged to a band where one member was missing. It was easy to do stuff from ‘Think Tank’, but they were the only bits I looked forward to.”
