Gorillaz review – Damon Albarn and friends make a bit of live music history
“It’s such a joy to be back,” says Gorillaz’s human representative, Damon Albarn, addressing a full and bouncing O2 Arena. “Thousands of people communing together. What a wonderful feeling. Thank you.” The crowd roar as if they haven’t been to a gig in 18 months.
Who’d have thought that pop’s longest-serving imaginary band – as youthfully bony as when they were first drawn by artist Jamie Hewlett in 1998 – would make a little real-life history by being the first act to play the reopened O2 Arena? Gorillaz and the O2 aren’t natural bedfellows, the former being ramshackle punk/dub/hip-hop futurists and the latter London’s most impersonal venue, but the arena is the only place large enough to hold them, in all senses. Outside, a gigantic queue snakes around crash barriers, and that’s just to buy hoodies; inside, every seat is occupied, and the stage itself teems with musicians, special guests and, onscreen, the gurning cartoon Gorillaz: Murdoc, Noodle, Russel and 2D. This is, in every respect, a big show.
The pretext for these two gigs – there was a free set for NHS workers the night before – is the 20th anniversary of their self-titled debut album, (there’s also their seventh album to promote, Song Machine Season One: Strange Timez, which was stitched together from tracks released over the course of last year). But any excuse would have done, and a limber, no-wayhe’s-53 Albarn almost says as much. Not normally effusive, he frequently breaks off to marvel at the pleasure of playing to a live audience. “Oh, my goodness,” he says after singing into dazzled, maskless front-row faces during the 2006 single El Mañana. “I feel like we’ve come back so much stronger.”
Gorillaz, both human and virtual, have certainly weathered Covid with no deflation of their deceptively chaotic spirit. Deceptive it is; proceedings apparently tumble along at will, but to paraphrase Dolly Parton, it takes a lot of discipline to look this messy. The brilliant backing band may mill about the stage, Hewlett’s manga-cum-sci-fi visuals may feel like a nightmare iPad you can’t turn off (a frowning Murdoc is succeeded by an eye-burning shot of a barnacle-encrusted submarine that distracts from Leee John’s marvellous guest spot on Lost Chord) and the musical mix of funk, dub and Afrobeat may tumble all over the place, offering everything from Little Simz’s amphetamine rhyming on Garage Palace to Malian vocalist Fatoumata Diawara’s swooning duet with Albarn. But Albarn is a commander at heart, and the same focus that made Blur titans in the 90s is at work here.
As artist and host, he’s everywhere: playing a keyboard, tooting a melodica, partnering De La Soul’s Pos on an explosive Feel Good Inc and ushering the whole shebang along. That Gorillaz fit 31 songs into the set without it feeling overloaded testifies to his directorial ability.
Overall, tonight is about feeling a part of something again. As guests arrive and leave the stage, he sweeps each one into a bear hug. Robert Smith, who nudges the ghostly Strange Timez into even spookier territory by dint of real-life gothic charisma, has his sequined shirt rumpled; Peter Hook and his bass, here to elevate the airy indiefunk of Aries, are gathered into his arms, and on it goes. These are beloved figures – the appearance of Shaun Ryder and Rowetta for a sharpened-up Dare unites the audience in a howl of delight. Gathered under one roof, this spectacle of a show creates what you can only call feel-good magic.