Damon Albarn’s music-packed freight train is rattling its way to Liverpool this week...
Africa Express was started by Damon and a mob of likeminded musicians angry at the lack of African artists at Bob Geldof's Live 8, but it has turned into something much bigger – a forum where African and western musicians can work together.
Previously its events have been so secretive that it was feared to have become an exclusive musicians' club. But now, following a five-hour Glastonbury superjam last year, it had gone public.
Damon explains: “Around the time of Live8, I was among a group of people who felt that there was a chasm growing between genuine interaction with Africa and its culture and these spectacles that are staged with a kind of neo-missionary zeal.
“We started getting in touch with a number of artists who we thought might be interested in something different - people like Martha Wainwright and Jamie T - and took some of them to Mali.
“Last year, we put on a gig in Brixton with different people jamming and then Emily Eavis offered us the Park Stage on the periphery of Glastonbury for the Saturday night. It wasn't advertised and there were only a few hundred people there, but something magical happened that night.�
He’s hoping to recreate that magic with a star-studded event planned for the Olympia on Thursday.
The ever-expanding coalition of African and Western musicians Damon helped to found is expected to feature Reverend and the Makers and Hard Fi, plus members of The Verve and The Magic Numbers, alongside the former Blur frontman himself.
Damon adds: “We need to lower our expectations in the west if we're ever going to find any balance with the developing world.
“Concerts where everyone engages via the TV is not lowering expectations, it's separating expectations, and that is the enemy of what needs to be done.
“We need to stop seeing the developing world as something that is a victim, which, plainly, is just a depressing and negative perspective.�
Africa Express takes place at Olympia Theatre, Tuebrook, on Thursday. Tickets £10. For more information, see www.africaexpress.co.uk.