Gorillaz To Pay Tribute to ‘Hopper’ At Glastonbury.

The Gorillaz will pay tribute to late acting legend Dennis Hopper during the band’s headlining slot at Britain’s Glastonbury festival – by projecting images from his EASY RIDER movie on to the stage.

The band, fronted by Damon Albarn, has been drafted in to replace U2 tonight (25th June 2010) after they pulled out due to Bono’s recent back surgery.

And the group is determined to make the show a poignant one by remembering Hopper – who befriended Albarn after narrating Gorillaz’s track Fire Coming Out Of The Monkey’s Head in 2005.

Albarn tells tabloid newspaper The Sun:

“I think he’d be happy with what we’ve planned. I know he would want to be doing this if he was still with us.

“I saw him three weeks before he passed away and, obviously he was incredibly ill. But he was very positive about everything.”

Gorillaz‘s co-creator Jamie Hewlett added:

“It’s important for someone like him to be remembered because there will be people in the audience who might not know who Dennis Hopper is.

“As soon as you show him as Billy Boy in Easy Rider they will know instantly. We’ve got the song that Damon’s going to play, then we felt that in that environment you need to see iconic images of him on screen, so in the short space of time we’ve been trying to sort it. We’ve got complete clearance on Easy Eider. Sony have been amazing and said, ‘Use whatever you want.’

“It’s a perfect environment to do a tribute to Dennis Hopper.”