How weird that Damon Albarn and the Gallagher brothers were once rivals — they have taken such divergent paths in the past three decades that comparison feels ridiculous. As Oasis resurrect Britpop euphoria in stadiums across the world, Albarn and his rotating, cartoon-fronted supergroup are marking 25 years of existence with a residency in a basketball arena, accompanied by an exhibition of Jamie Hewlett’s cartoon visuals.
While Noel and Liam stick to their Nineties guns, Gorillaz embody the Catholic tastes of the streaming era, flicking nonchalantly between rap, electronica, dub, latin and ferocious punk. At each show they are playing an album in full — unlike Oasis, Albarn has made more than two decent ones. On this first night at the Copper Box Arena in London, they did their self-titled debut of 2001, and if it lacked the star guests of previous tours, they more than made up for that with style, wit and low-slung revelry.
The opener, M1 A1, was full of crunching riffs and strident charisma, while Latin Simone (Que Pasa Contigo) was built around the yearning disembodied vocals of Ibrahim Ferrer, the Buena Vista Social Club singer, who died in 2005. Clint Eastwood, the standout track of the album and arguably of the whole Gorillaz back catalogue, was a lolloping marvel, reinforced with girder-like beats from DJ Kid Koala.
Albarn sang in that metallic mike-filtered tenor and switched between keyboards, choppy guitar and melodica, whose haunting lilt runs through the album. He is so at ease in front of an audience that any mistakes or unexpected pauses felt as if they were part of the show, and some of his patter took the mickey out of the whole notion of patter. “I can’t hear you,” he said, whipping up the crowd, before catching himself. “Enough of that nonsense. I do apologise.” Of the Gorillaz album, he said: “Some of you weren’t born and all that bollocks,” although that was true — the vocal crowd included plenty of Gen Zs.
For the encore they followed the military-grade dub of Dracula with a glorious reprise of Clint Eastwood, faster this time and featuring raucous reggae toasting from Sweetie Irie. Albarn appeared to be wearing a hockey mask, like an art-school version of Michael Myers from Halloween, who instead of murdering you would make you listen to his Einstürzende Neubauten records. Can’t see Liam Gallagher getting away with that.
★★★★☆
Copper Box Arena, London, Sep 1-3 gorillaz.com
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