Gorillaz review: Damon Albarn and his animated icons deliver amazing, absorbing show in Leeds

Damon Albarn brought the Gorillaz show into Leeds on Wednesday at the First Direct Bank Arena; a stark contrast to the Reform UK rally held in the same space the day prior.

Resembling a bedraggled militia gang with green overcoats and CND signs abounding, the wide ranging 12-piece ensemble performed with a flurry of special guests to a backdrop of Jamie Hewlitt's 25 years' worth of animations that have accompanied this most curious and compelling of entities.

And the music speaks for itself. Take away all of the gimmicks and politics and visuals and one thing for certain is that Damon Albarn has earned our ears' attention.

The Gorillaz latest album The Mountain was created amid a period of grief and reflection for Albarn and Hewlitt, whose fathers both died within 10 days, and acts as a farewell to those that have gone and also, from reading between the sketched lines, potentially to the band itself.

Tonight’s setlist pulls mightily from the record and is all the better for it. The album was crafted after a spiritually enhancing visit to India and the band is added to with florists and percussionists from the region to help recreate its classically-leaning sound.

It all comes together beautifully for the opening number, the self-titled instrumental that opens the record. Albarn comes out to a loud cheer and begins to do yoga poses (including, of course, Mountain pose) as the woozy flutes and lilting acoustic guitar accompany the Jungle Book-like visuals that introduce the narrative. After a foray through the jungle the four virtual band members meet - 2D, Murdoc, Noodle and Russel - to an even bigger roar that brings an end to an absorbing introduction.

Albarn is then his usual playful, ebullient self as The Happy Dictator kicks in and the screens, in-between playing Hewlitt’s visuals, reveal the eternally playful Sparks as they chant ‘Oh what a happy land we live in’. They are the first of many guests that will appear in either visual or physical form.

The latest album elaborates on its theme by sampling deceased artists who have previously featured in the Gorillaz world, and the show adds major prominence to these moments; with Mark E. Smith’s scathing drawl during ‘Delirium’ particularly earth-shattering.

Similarly, the three lyrical sermons from rapper Black Thought across the album arrive at key moments in the visual narrative, acting like a voice from the depths of pure consciousness when things get most lucid.

It’s all weaved together quite spectacularly with the older tracks, which showcase just how vast and evolving Gorillaz have been both visually and musically throughout.

The roughshod drawings of the earlier days hark back to a more innocent time during ‘Tomorrow Comes Today’ and the pure enjoyment of ‘19/2000’ and the huge leap in ambition and scale is apparent during tracks from subsequent classics Demon Days and Plastic Beach.

Damon’s downplayed vocals, give a humbling prominence to his collaborators and there are plenty of them. Idles’ Joe Talbot is the first to appear before the inimitable Yasiin Bey (formerly Mos Def) arrives for a performance of Stylo, a particular highlight that features the Bruce Willis-starring video and an electrifying recording of the great Bobby Womack, whose vocals also featured during a sobering performance of ‘The Cloud Of Unknowing’ to a backdrop of military catastrophes.

Bootie Brown pops out with boundless energy for his verse on the bleakly brilliant ‘Dirty Harry’ but the flowers for the night go unquestionably to backing singer Michelle Ndegwa, who brings the roof and everything above it down during an utterly astounding outro to ‘Kids With Guns’. Wailing “They’re turning us into monsters” and “It’s all design”, I can only but compare it to The Rolling Stones’ ‘Gimme Shelter’. A phenomenal moment.

The encore sees Albarn joined by Kara Jackson for The Mountain’s most overtly evocative moment with the light exuberance of ‘Orange County’ (”You know the hardest thing is to say goodbye to someone you love”) before De La Soul’s Posdnuos directs those standing to demand the packed out seated section to get on their feet for a punchy version of fan favourite ‘Feel Good Inc.’ The seated section can hardly be blamed for staying sat down up to this point, with the show being so engrossing in every measure to this point.

Finally, Argentinian MC Trueno is given a birthday treat by given the grace to freestyle over the group’s pulverising debut single ‘Clint Eastwood’. Having earlier astounded the crowd with his versatile, relentless delivery on ‘The Manifesto’, the young maestro sees off the show in spectacular fashion, giving credence to Albarn’s summation of the band as intergenerational and able to regenerate “through the imaginations of the people who embrace it”.

Setlist:

• The Mountain
• The Happy Dictator
• Tranz
• int dark pop
• Tomorrow Comes Todat
• 19/2000
• The God Of Lying (feat. Joe Talbot)
• The Moon Cave
• El Manana
• intro madam
• On Melancholy Hill
• The Empty Dream Machine
• Cloud Of Unknowing
• Delirium
• Andromeda
• Stylo (feat. Yasiin Bey)
• Damazcus (feat. Yasiin Bey)
• Kids With Guns (feat. Michelle Ndegwa)
• intro
• Dirty Harry (feat. Bootie Brown)
• The Shadowy Light
• The Sad God
• The Hardest Thing
• Orange County (feat. Kara Jackson)
• The Manifesto - (feat. Trueno)
• Feel Good Inc (feat. Posdnuos)
• Clint Eastwood (feat. Trueno)