Gorillaz delivered their first stadium show at Tottenham Hotspur Stadium, a staggering hi-tech spectacle lasting two and a half hours. The event functioned as a mini-festival, featuring a seemingly endless stream of high-profile guest stars. The audacious ambition and military precision of the performance stemmed from the fecund imagination and magpie mind of Damon Albarn.
Eclectic Musical Exploration
Damon Albarn has never encountered a genre of music he doesn't want to explore. In recent years, he has transformed Gorillaz from a mildly gimmicky virtual band co-conceived with graphic artist Jamie Hewlett into a sprawling expression of his own musical curiosity and rampant eclecticism. The days of holograms of 2-D, Murdoc, Noodle, and Russel on stage are gone. Instead, Hewlett's striking graphics played on giant screens over a stage where Albarn, bearded in a combat jacket and beanie hat, acted as the grinning ringmaster and MC of this dazzling circus.
Guest Stars and Musical Highlights
A stream of virtuoso Indian musicians reflected a motif of Gorillaz's recent ninth album, The Mountain, including Anoushka Shankar's fluid sitar patterns and Ajay Prasanna's skittering flute. Albarn also infiltrated the falsetto, rococo pop of support act Sparks into the pulsing melody of The Happy Dictator. For The Moon Cave, veteran cosmic-pop diva Asha Puthli, in a silver cape, performed alongside The Roots' Black Thought. Little Dragon's singer Yukimi, in a blue ballgown, gave way to twerking, helium-voiced soul star Moonchild Sanelly. On Casablanca, a prowling Johnny Marr and Paul Simonon joined the thrumming track.
Themes of Mortality and Loss
Mortality and loss are major themes of The Mountain. On Delirium, the guttural bark of the late Mark E. Smith bounced around a stadium full of greying first-generation Blur fans and their excited kids. Both generations enjoyed effervescent Malian singer Fatoumata Diawara's keening harmonies and gorgeous traditional attire. A strong rap presence included urgent performances from Yasiin Bey (trading rhymes with Syrian icon Omar Souleyman), Bootie Brown appearing on the verge of self-combustion, and Little Simz spitting words like bullets. When the focus shifted back to India, singer Zanai Bhosle filled the shoes of her grandmother, Asha, who recently passed away.
Encore and Finale
For the encore, Shaun Ryder of Gogglebox fame materialized to growl through Dare before Posdnuos from De La Soul ignited the giddy delirium of Feel Good Inc. The night ended as Gorillaz began 25 years ago, with the sly, loping melodies of their insouciant debut single, Clint Eastwood. The evening was an extraordinary triumph, and as soon as he got backstage, Damon Albarn surely began planning his next move.
