Gorillaz – The Old Market, Hove – 25/3/10
5/5
By: Keri Kennedy
Say what you like about Britpop, but all that hyperbole created a scene - sure, much of it was largely unwarranted, but a few of the ‘stars’ continue to shine. Jarvis cuts a fine solo figure these days, and Noel Gallagher, well, you know, Oasis fans will always buy Noel Gallagher tickets, even if he only promises b-sides from 1996.
But Damon Albarn has been doing something amazing with Gorillaz for nigh on 12 years, and we’ve become sort of immune to the brilliance of the project. Perhaps it’s because it’s not a real band? Maybe serious music fans don’t latch on to cartoon characters. So tonight, in a 400-capacity venue typically reserved for amateur dramatics and weddings, this year’s Coachella headliners play everything you’d want to hear. Shorn of visual fancy, holographic wonder and whatever other, doubtless staggering, distractions the group have up their sleeves for the festival dates and London Roundhouse shows, the music – and musicians – are free to rip the roof off the place, and each and every one looks to be having a laugh-riot.
All of the “Stripped down” 13-piece band wear Breton shirts. Sea-faring analogies are bandied about, with Albarn admitting the gig is an effort to get the whole thing “ship shape”. The confines of this mini tour mean there are no guest vocalists, with recorded vocal tracks in their place, but the actual music is just as we can expect for the larger shows (Albarn even holds the mic up to a non-existent companion during the rap section of Dirty Harry, as if this space will be filled later on). Two drummers, four backing singers, a couple of keyboardists and – oh yes – two members of the f**king Clash rip through most of the singles and much more. Just as the new Mark E smith-helmed ‘Glitter Freeze’ has got everyone dancing, perfectly joining the north of England with the south, Shaun Ryder’s ‘D.A.R.E.’ booms out of the PA, and you remember Damon had already made that perfect bridge-building pop dance hit on the previous album. Each and every track affects in a way never reached on record – Snoop Dogg’s ‘Plastic Beach’ has more swagger, ‘On Melancholy Hill’ is more, well, melancholy, and ‘Clint Eastwood’ sounds less pop, more anthem.
Throughout Albarn, centre-stage, looks enraptured with the noise around him, dancing about as he did in Blur’s earliest performances, grinning, occasionally looking at the spotlights in wonder. Whether on guitar, melodica, piano, keyboard or just crooning, he seems delighted that’s it’s all working so far, and that it sounds so potent and complete.
The next morning, the Roundhouse gig tickets sell out in ten minutes and surface on eBay for £150 each. It’s reassuring to know genius endures.
Artists in this article: Gorillaz
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